Leadership Is an Inside Job
What fifteen years of building an organisation have taught me about courage, self-leadership, responsibility, vulnerability — and the strange business of leading other people when you're still figuring yourself out.
Speaking & Conversations
Honest talk about leading, building and staying human.
I speak from fifteen years of founding and growing a grassroots organisation — the wins, the mistakes and the questions I'm still working through.
- Conference keynotes
- Panel discussions
- Podcast & media interviews
- University conversations
- Leadership workshops
- Women's leadership & social-impact events
Proposed talks
Each can be tailored to your audience, format and length.
Beyond Charity: Building Communities That Flourish
Lessons from connecting conservation, education, livelihoods and community development, and why some of our well-meant approaches to social change need rethinking.
Who Gets to Lead?
On women's leadership, power and authority — whose knowledge counts, and why different voices need a real place at the table where decisions get made.
From Founder to Architect
The challenge of building something meaningful and then creating the structures, teams and leadership it needs to grow beyond the person who started it.
Speaking moments
Speaker biography
Sarah Dawn Bergs is a South African social entrepreneur, author and speaker, and the Founder and CEO of Nourish, an award-winning nonprofit working with rural communities alongside the Greater Kruger National Park.
She founded Nourish in 2011 at 23. Over fifteen years it has grown into an integrated Eco Village model with around 50 staff across three sites in rural Limpopo, and was named Charity of the Year 2026 by the Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism. Sarah has also established nonprofits in the United States and Canada.
Her work explores feminist leadership, ethical authority, dignity, Ubuntu and building organisations that thrive beyond their founders. She is completing an MBA and writing two books.
Selected conference presentations
Ubuntu as a Governance Lens
9th International Conference on the Future of Women · Bali, Indonesia · February 2026
Leading Without the Blueprint
53rd Global Conference on Women in Business and Leadership · Montreal, Canada · April 2026
Leading With Dignity
International Conference on Women in Leadership and Empowerment · Vancouver, Canada (virtual) · April 2026
If you'd like to talk about anything here, you're welcome to get in touch.