Alexia Vernon is the founder and CEO of Step into Your Moxie, a communication and leadership development company that equips executives, senior leaders, emerging leaders, scientists, clinicians, sales professionals, and consultants to communicate with credibility in complex, high-stakes environments and stand out as trusted speakers and thought leaders.
She is the award-winning author of Step into Your Moxie: Amplify Your Voice, Visibility, and Influence in the World and 90 Days, 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance. In 2012, the White House Office of Public Engagement dubbed her a “Moxie Maven” for her work advancing women’s leadership.
If you searched for Alexia Vernon because you heard her deliver a keynote, read one of her books, took her LinkedIn Learning course, or received her name from a colleague, this page will help you understand her work, her approach, and how to engage her and the Step into Your Moxie team.
Are you ready to discuss working with Alexia Vernon and Step into Your Moxie?
2. What Is Step into Your Moxie?
3. What Is Alexia Vernon’s Approach to Communication?
4. How Does Step into Your Moxie Work with Organizations?
5. Does Step into Your Moxie Work with Individual Leaders?
6. What Is Alexia Vernon Known for as a Keynote Speaker?
7. How Does Alexia Vernon Support Patient Advocacy?
8. How Do You Work with Alexia Vernon and Step into Your Moxie?
Alexia Vernon has spent two decades teaching leaders how to speak up, influence, and tell compelling stories that inspire teams, audiences, and customers to take action. Through keynotes, executive coaching, and experiential leadership training that blends role-play, storytelling, and emotional intelligence, she has developed leaders at Fortune 500 companies, healthcare and life sciences organizations, government agencies, professional services firms, nonprofits, associations, and the United Nations.
Her two books, Step into Your Moxie and 90 Days, 90 Ways, have made her a trusted voice on communication, influence, and professional development. Her LinkedIn Learning course, “Communicating to Drive People to Take Action,” has reached more than 180,000 learners worldwide.
She delivered a TEDx talk on the future of feminism and was named one of the Top Keynote Speakers in Las Vegas. Her commentary and expertise have been featured on CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS, and in Forbes, Inc., Women’s Health, and The European Business Review.
Before Alexia Vernon coached executives, she trained in educational theatre and improv. That background shapes how she teaches. Her sessions are experiential, participatory, and frequently funny, and participants leave having practiced the skills rather than having listened to a lecture about them.
Alexia serves as the Vice Chair on the THIRD Street Board of Directors, is a member of the invite-only International Women’s Forum (IWF) Nevada, and is the proud mother of TEDxLasVegas speaker Kaia Vernon-Oliveira.
Step into Your Moxie is a Las Vegas-based executive communication and leadership development company founded and led by Alexia Vernon. The firm partners with organizations through executive and team communication retainers, leadership and communication training, team building, executive and speaker coaching, and a Fractional Chief Learning Officer program for organizations building ongoing internal talent development.
The company takes its name from Alexia Vernon’s award-winning book, and its programs share a common goal. Leaders and teams learn to strengthen their voice and presence in high-stakes conversations and presentations, cultivate greater psychological safety and trust with the people they lead, and encourage the kind of meaningful dialogue that inspires people to speak up and influence.
While Alexia leads the company and its methodology, Step into Your Moxie extends well past one coach. More than 60 certified facilitators deliver the company’s training and coaching, which gives organizations a consistent approach with the capacity to develop hundreds of leaders at once.
For coaches, trainers, and internal facilitators who want to bring this methodology into their own work, Step into Your Moxie also offers a certification program. Certified facilitators learn to deliver the company’s practice-based communication and leadership curriculum with their own clients or internal teams, and many organizations use certification to build internal champions who sustain the work between engagements with Step into Your Moxie.
Most communication training focuses on what to say. Alexia Vernon’s work also addresses what happens inside a speaker when it’s time to communicate. Her Vocal Empowerment Framework develops leaders across five dimensions of communication, from the inner voice that shapes self-talk, to the physiological sensations that surface under pressure, to messaging, presence, and the ability to move people to take action.
Nervous system regulation and psychological safety sit at the foundation of this work. When leaders learn to notice and navigate what their bodies do in high-stakes moments, whether that’s a racing heart before a board presentation or the urge to over-apologize in a tense negotiation, they gain access to their full voice precisely when they need it most. And when leaders communicate in ways that build psychological safety, their teams speak up earlier, surface problems faster, and engage in the meaningful dialogue that drives better decisions.
The foundation of Alexia Vernon’s approach to communication development is role-play. Clients rehearse for the presentation, funding pitch, media interview, or feedback conversation with a direct report, and they receive real-time coaching and feedback from Alexia or their designated speaking coach. By the time the actual high-stakes moment arrives, they have already practiced navigating the pressure, refined their message, and experienced themselves excelling, so they are set up to succeed. This practice-based, trauma-sensitive methodology is what organizations most consistently name when they describe why Step into Your Moxie’s work sticks when previous coaching and training failed.
Organizations engage Alexia Vernon and the Step into Your Moxie team in a few key ways.
The executive and team communications retainer. Ongoing communication support for senior leaders and their teams, scoped around the presentations, pitches, panels, town halls, and internal communications already on the calendar. Rather than attending training disconnected from their actual work, leaders prepare for real upcoming moments with a coach in their corner. Retainers give organizations a consistent communication partner who knows their leaders, their business, and their goals, and they can flex as priorities shift across the year, from investor presentations one quarter to conference keynotes and difficult internal conversations the next.
Leadership and communication training. Full-day and multi-day, interactive training programs, delivered virtually or in-person, that build speaking, influence, and leadership communication skills across functions and levels. Recent programs have equipped life sciences teams to present research and pitch with greater clarity and confidence, developed sales professionals’ ability to open and advance high-stakes conversations, and taught leaders to communicate through change and uncertainty in ways that keep teams engaged. Every training is experiential, with participants on their feet, practicing real-world communication and problem-solving scenarios.
Team building. Facilitated experiences that use improv and communication as the vehicle for building trust, strengthening psychological safety, and improving how groups collaborate and make decisions together. Teams practice the conversations they tend to avoid, learn each other’s communication patterns, and leave with shared language and tools they continue using long after the session ends.
Organizations that want to build lasting internal capability can also engage Step into Your Moxie as a Fractional Chief Learning Officer, which brings ongoing executive, leadership, and employee development to companies without a full-time Chief Learning Officer.
Yes, selectively. Alexia Vernon coaches executives and senior leaders one-on-one, often when they’re stepping into a promotion, preparing for a high-visibility opportunity, or entering a season where their communication will carry unusual weight. She also provides speaker coaching for leaders and subject matter experts developing keynotes and thought leadership platforms. Through her speaker coaching, clients have delivered international keynotes, TEDx talks, presented to corporate boards and before Congress, been interviewed by Oprah, and secured nine-figure investor offers for their companies.
For established women consultants and women leading professional services firms, Alexia Vernon leads Legacy. Legacy members have already built successful businesses. They join Alexia’s carefully curated brain trust to grow their firms more sustainably, sharpen their positioning and thought leadership, navigate the decisions that come with running a business people depend on, and support one another with the candor that’s hard to find once you’re the leader everyone else turns to for answers.
Alexia Vernon delivers keynotes for corporations, associations, public sector agencies, women’s leadership conferences, and industry events in the fields of healthcare, life sciences, financial services, food and agriculture, and technological and professional services. She was named one of the Top 10 Keynote Speakers in Las Vegas in 2026, and event organizers consistently rebook her because her sessions get audiences on their feet, in their voices, and into practice.
Her keynote and workshop topics focus on how to speak up and influence, communicate through change and uncertainty, strengthen team communication, increase grit and resilience, develop executive presence and presentation skills, and become a strategic storyteller.
Whether she has a room of 30 senior leaders or a ballroom of 1000+ conference attendees, Alexia Vernon builds in participation, humor, and real communication practice, so attendees apply what they learn and leave a session with both inspiration and specific, practical next steps.
In addition to delivering keynotes and facilitating training sessions, executive retreats, and team-building sessions, Alexia Vernon can serve as an emcee and panel moderator for conferences and leadership events. Event organizers who need a speaker to anchor a women’s leadership summit, energize a sales kickoff, or give a burned-out workforce practical communication tools discover her through the kind of search that brought you to this page.
Alexia Vernon is a two-time cancer survivor, and that experience has shaped her patient advocacy and made her a sought-after partner for organizations serving patients. She works with healthcare companies, life sciences organizations, and health media platforms that want to improve patient safety, stand out as trusted thought leaders, and use better communication with patients. She also brings the patient perspective into how clinical and commercial teams present research, data, and treatment options.
Alexia Vernon trains and coaches patient advocates too. Through workshops and coaching, Alexia Vernon teaches patient leaders how to shape their lived experience into keynotes and signature talks, position themselves for paid speaking opportunities, and grow their influence as thought leaders in their health communities. Advocates leave with practical strategy for building speaking businesses around the stories they are living.
Navigating breast cancer and thyroid cancer also informs how Alexia Vernon coaches leaders through fear and uncertainty.
Whether your organization needs an executive and team communications retainer, leadership and communication training, or a facilitated team-building experience, or you’re a woman consultant or professional services firm leader exploring Legacy, the first step is a short exploratory call about your goals and to explore if and where a communication partner, like Step into Your Moxie, can help.
If you’re planning an event and want to bring Alexia Vernon in as a keynote speaker or workshop facilitator, an exploratory call is also the best place to start.
