Over 20 years of creative experience distilled into applicable mindsets, behaviors, and tools to help ambitious professionals navigate the complexities of work, build sustainable careers, lead with impact and do tremendous things.
Navigate the complexities of creative work.
Trusted by:
Tracy Candido is an executive and leadership coach who specializes in professional growth and development for ambitious innovators, creatives and builders to break through limitations and achieve extraordinary results.
As a sought-after speaker and thought leader, Tracy has delivered keynotes and workshops that blend cutting-edge mindset science with practical creative strategies and personal stories at organizations like The Walker Art Center, CreativeMornings and Girl Scouts of the USA, for conferences like the American Alliance for Museums and the Women in Communications NYC summit, on podcasts like Coach Factory, Startup Parent and Two Inboxes by Forbes, and in publications like AMEX’s Business Class, Google For Work, Bird, Metro US and BUST magazine.
Tracy’s talks and workshops create immediate breakthroughs by showing creative audiences how to shift their mental models and take consistent action to bring innovative ideas to life. Participants consistently report not just new insights, but tangible transformations in their approach to challenges and opportunities. Tracy’s tone is warm, connected and approachable, yet also energetic and playful. Highly skilled in both virtual and IRL formats, Tracy’s talks and workshops are highly interactive, appealing to the many and various ways people learn.
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Beyond the stage, Tracy coaches mid-to-senior creative professionals to navigate the obstacles specific to creative minds that may hinder their path to leadership and greater impact, like retaining focus, creative blocks, procrastination and limiting beliefs.
Tracy’s unique perspective comes from being a deeply creative spirit herself, intimately knowing how the creative mind works and the very real struggles of being a creative person in the workplace. Prior to becoming a coach, she spent over 15 years as a creative producer and curator, developing public programs, live events and talks and workshops across industries: museums, advertising and non-profits. She became known for infusing her independent spirit, creative intuition and community-building expertise into every event.
Tracy is certified by the International Coaching Federation, with over 100 hours of training and 500 hours of coaching and has won awards for her creatively produced events and experiences, namely the Blade of Grass, Culture Push and Puffin foundations. She holds an MA in Visual Culture Theory from NYU and a BA in Visual Media Studies from Emerson College, and currently serves as a mentor for New Museum’s NEW INC fellowship.
Watch a clip of Strategic Project Planning for Procrastinators led by Tracy for over 200 participants for CreativeMornings
Embrace new creative leadership strategies from the inside out.
Keynotes
The Hidden Leadership Playbook
Modern leadership isn’t just about what you show the world—it’s about the unseen forces driving your decisions, relationships, and impact. My Hidden Leadership Playbook reveals the inner and outer systems that shape leadership identity, team dynamics, and long-term success.
In this engaging keynote, I’ll guide leaders through the Inner System (self-awareness, strengths, and decision-making) and the Outer System (collaboration, psychological safety, and team trust). Leaders who master both don’t just manage their teams—they inspire, adapt, and create environments where innovative work thrives.
By the end, leaders will walk away with the foundation for their own personalized leadership playbook—a structured approach to leading with clarity, confidence, and impact. Because when leadership feels aligned, work becomes not just effective, but energizing.
Coaching Skills for Stronger Leadership
Let’s be real—most of us learned leadership the old way: be the expert, have the answers, drive the team like a well-oiled machine. That might have worked in 1985, but today? It’s a fast track to burnout and disengagement.
The best leaders today aren’t commanders—they’re coaches. Not the “rah-rah” motivational kind, but leaders who know how to listen deeply, ask the right questions, and create an environment where people think for themselves.
In this keynote, I break down four game-changing coaching skills that turn good managers into exceptional leaders. You’ll learn how to adapt your leadership style based on what your team actually needs, ask the kinds of questions that unlock real insights, and build the kind of trust that leads to better collaboration, ownership, and results.
Because great leadership isn’t about always having the answers—it’s about knowing how to bring out the best in the people around you.
A Field Guide to Building a Sustainable Career
Ambitious professionals are great at moving forward—but rarely given the tools to sustain the journey. We chase goals, stretch ourselves, and say yes to opportunities, but over time, we start to feel the weight of exhaustion, doubt, or the quiet question: Is this really working for me?
This keynote is a gentle but powerful guide to reshaping your career into something sustainable, fulfilling, and uniquely yours. Instead of burnout cycles and all-or-nothing thinking, I’ll introduce four essential tools to help you navigate career growth with more clarity and ease:
🌱 Noticing Your Energy Leaks – Where does your work drain you? Where does it light you up? Small shifts in awareness can create big shifts in how you work.
🎯 Finding Your Best-Fit Projects — Using my Project Alignment Map to align skills, passion, business objectives, deeper motivations, and available tools.
🤝 Creative Community & Connection – Because no one builds a sustainable career alone. Learn how to cultivate the right support systems for long-term growth.
🍞 The Breadcrumb Method – Forget five-year plans. Learn how small, intentional steps lead to clarity, momentum, and the work you actually want to be doing.
This is a talk for creatives, leaders, and ambitious professionals who want to build a career that lasts—one that grows with them instead of depleting them. Because success isn’t just about reaching the next milestone—it’s about creating a work-life rhythm that supports you along the way.
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