How my journey is going…
Rohene Bouajram (she/her/hers) is a renowned international speaker whose impassioned advocacy has stamped the hearts of her audiences worldwide. Challenging her audiences to go within, Rohene's messages to women of color are ones that encapsulate the true essence of alchemy – transforming ideas into actions and barriers into stepping stones.
Today, Rohene’s center stages model the embracement of the power of diversity in the workplace and the gentle reminder that even the smallest step in the right direction is better than taking no step at all. Even more, she is on a mission to empower women across pathways connected to migration, diaspora and intergenerational cycles to embrace leadership with authenticity and fearlessness, and to step into their innate potential as both individuals and thought-leading professionals.
Leaning on the principles of dignity, respect, and trust, her public speaking holds deep personal roots in her bridged identity as a Zimbabwean-Canadian. As a woman of color and an uninvited guest, Rohene believes in the importance of doing one’s inner work to defy the odds of a pre-set future that are upheld by systems that have not been designed for everyone to succeed. Rohene studied in Finland, China, and Canada, and spent over two decades as an educator, researcher and leader in higher education/academia - scaling areas of strategic program development, EDI, transformational systemic change, leadership, and student affairs. With this as her base, it didn't take long for Rohene to extend into the public eye. Rohene's soulful smile and beyond-the-surface guidance for racialized women in leadership have reached national and international panels. Naturally, this was alongside supporting various community initiatives, serving on taskforces and advisory committees, collaboratively working with government officials to improve policy reform, and more recently, launching her global podcast, Unspeakable Leadership.
Overall, Rohene is a high-energy advocate for meaningful change and is best known for human-centered and easy-to-follow engagements that shift the pendulum towards healthy reformations in and outside the workplace. She has been recognized as an EDI leader that led her to receive a national award in 2022 from the Canadian Bureau for International Education. In addition, she understands that systematic shifts begin not by waiting but by being the domino that sets it in motion. Applying that as a speaker and modeling her authentic leadership as a Black woman, Rohene’s captivating dialogues are weaved with an innate passion for rectifying injustices and an underlying message for women to not be afraid to step up and be heard. Above all, Rohene’s work echoes the push for breaking generational/cultural biases to transform family trees, and ultimately motivates the leaders of tomorrow to become the very change they want to see and what the world needs.
Off stage, Rohene enjoys collecting passport stamps (she has traveled to 4 different continents and counting), running, reading, and holding her most cherished title – mum.