A Conversation with Shereese Floyd, Executive Director of TEDxCharlotte

Shereese Floyd has spent over a decade building rooms where stories become undeniable. This is an introduction to who she is, why she does this work, and what brought her back to Charlotte's longest-standing TED event as its Executive Director. If you have ever felt like your story was waiting for the right room, keep reading.

You are the Executive Director of TEDxCharlotte. For people who do not know you, who are you?

I am a storyteller first. I love a good narrative. I'm really good at hearing the things that people don't say. Emotion is my superpower. That is where everything begins for me. I started my career as a writer, and over time that evolved into understanding that story is not just a creative tool. It is the most powerful instrument a person owns for building authority, influence, and connection. Everything I have built professionally traces back to that belief.

But I got receipts…

I am the founder of Witness My Life, a storytelling and thought leadership firm built on my proprietary StoryMakers Formula. I am the author of "Become the Greatest Story Ever Told: Making a Memoir." I am the Founder and CEO of AI Consultants for Nonprofits, the first company to offer a CPD-accredited AI governance certification for nonprofit leaders. And I am the Executive Director of TEDxCharlotte, which is where I am putting most of my energy right now as we bring this event back to the city after a three year silence.

Let's talk about TEDxCharlotte. How did you get here?

It has been six years in the making, and I did not plan any of it.

I moved to Charlotte almost five years ago with 20 boxes in my SUV and a dream of reinventing myself. I had picked Charlotte on a map. Never been to the city. I sold my house and almost everything I owned and drove here from Virginia with nothing but intention. I was coming off my TEDxOcala talk, which I delivered in 2020, and I was ready to finally meet my truest self.

The first thing I did when I got to Charlotte was reach out to the TEDxCharlotte organizers. That was my way of getting connected to the city. I came in as a coach in 2023, the last time TEDxCharlotte was active. I sat in the background, supported speakers, and learned how this particular community thought.

From there I went on to produce TEDxMintStreet for two years. That was my training ground as an executive producer. I learned what it actually takes to build a room that changes people, not just a room that fills seats. One of the speakers from TEDxMintStreet went on to produce TEDxMyrtle Beach, and I became a coach and mentor through that process as well.

Now I am the organizer of TEDxCharlotte. The city has been without this event for three years. I am bringing it back on April 25th with our theme Terms and Conditions, 400 seats, and 13 speakers. Several of the coaches on our team are former TEDxCharlotte speakers. We are not starting over. We are breaking up with silence.

Terms and Conditions is a striking theme. What does it mean?

It means that every life comes with terms. The question is whether you wrote them or whether you accepted someone else's by default.

Most people are living on terms they never negotiated. They are operating under conditions that were handed to them by their industry, their family, their culture, or their fear. TEDx at its best is the room where someone stands up and says: these are my terms. This is what I have decided is true. And because one person says it out loud, everyone else in the room feels permission to examine their own.

That is what we are building on April 25th.

You have a TEDx talk of your own. Tell me about that.

As I mentioned earlier, I spoke at TEDxOcala at the start of the pandemic and social unrest with a talk called "The Secret to Healing the World." It earned the Cicero Speechwriting Award, which is one of the most meaningful recognitions I have received because well…I'm a writer. To have a talk recognized for its craft as much as its content felt like a full circle moment.

The talk chronicles the story of being a Black woman living across the cul de sac from a neighbor flying a Confederate flag.

The message is really about what happens when we choose to witness each other beyond our labels and positions. I believe the most vulnerable thing one human being can ask of another is: will you be a witness to my life? When we do that, we do not have to agree. We do not have to understand. We just have to see. And a life that is not seen is a life that is not valued.

That is the thesis I carry into every room I build.

You have talked about the speakers and team members who have come through your events going on to do significant things. Can you speak to that?

People who worked alongside me at TEDxMintStreet have gone on to produce their own TEDx events with major success. Speakers I have coached and mentored through my TEDx work, some of them first-time speakers, have built national platforms, won industry awards, reached millions of people, and expanded their reach in ways that continue to blow me away.

And I mean that literally. Brain explodes. Heart follows.

I will be honest. There have been moments where I watched someone I poured into go on to build something significant and my first reaction was not pride. It was something far more human than that. I had to get out of my own way before I could see what was actually happening, which is that I had planted something that grew.

That is the most human part of this work. I spend my days helping people see their own influence, name their own value, and claim the authority they have been sitting on. And sometimes I have to remind myself to do the same thing.

It's the beauty and balance of leadership. I often say that producing a TEDx is one of the most effective leadership programs ever. You get to confront yourself along the way.

The seeds you plant do not always grow where you can see them. But they grow.

What drives all of this for you at the core?

I do not want to live in a world where people feel invisible.

It is a value I have operated from since long before I had a business around it. I founded my first organization for women navigating life as partners of the incarcerated. People living at the intersection of love and public shame, invisible by design. What I learned there is that when one person chooses to be seen, it gives everyone around them permission to do the same.

That is still what I am doing. The stages are bigger. The platforms are different. But the work is the same.

What do you want people to know about TEDxCharlotte specifically?

That this event belongs to Charlotte. It has been here since 2010 and it is not going silent again. We are building something that this city can point to as its canonical intellectual event, the room where the ideas that shape this community get named out loud for the first time.

If you have been sitting on an idea, a story, a point of view that you have not known what to do with, this is your room. The stage is real. And the people who have stood on it before you have gone on to change the direction of their lives. Terms and Conditions. April 25th. Charlotte.

Come. https://www.tedxcharlotte.org/

If see yourself on the red dot one day or as part of the team, join us for an info session to learn how TEDxCharlotte comes together and how you can be a part of it. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tedxcharlotte-inside-the-red-dot-tickets-1985644440975

Outside of TEDxCharlotte, how can people work with you?

My work outside of TEDx lives under two houses.

The first is Witness My Life, where I work with individuals, corporations, and nonprofits through the StoryMakers Formula. If you have a story, an expertise, or a point of view that is not yet generating the income, influence, or authority it deserves, that is where we start. The work moves through three phases: discovering your story, shaping it, and sharing it in ways that build your platform and your bottom line.

The most direct entry point right now is DEFIANCE and ORIGIN, my thought leadership accelerators. DEFIANCE is for women. ORIGIN is for men. Both programs are built on the same premise: you are the best kept secret in your industry and that ends here. Each program includes eight on-demand modules, two live implementation days, and everything you need to go from sitting on your expertise to being paid for it.

DEFIANCE opens May 25th. ORIGIN opens June 1st. Register now for half off the regular program price. https://luma.com/user/shereesefloyd

The second house is AI Consultants for Nonprofits, where I work with nonprofit organizations, state associations, and workforce intermediaries on AI governance and certification. If your organization is navigating AI adoption without a framework, that is a conversation worth having. http://aiconsultantsfornonprofits.com/

You mentioned that when you moved to Charlotte, you came with the dream of finally meeting yourself. Did you?

Yes. And she was exactly who I thought she would be.

I did not find her all at once. It happened in the work. In the stages I built for other people before I fully claimed my own. In the moments I had to get out of my own way. In the rooms where I watched someone discover something about themselves they had been sitting on for years and recognized that I had been doing the same thing.

There is something that happens when you have spent years living in survival mode. You learn to expect the worst. You wait for the other shoe to drop. You hold your breath before good things arrive because you have been conditioned to believe they will not stay.

Meeting myself meant unlearning that.

It meant deciding that I was not going to be grateful for what I deserved. Not going to be humbled by what I had earned. Not going to be surprised by what I was capable of. I know who I am. I know what I am built for. And I have stopped apologizing for expecting things to match that.

Charlotte gave me the space to stop performing the version of myself I had built for survival and start living from the one I always knew was there.

I am not done meeting her. I do not think you ever are.

But I know her now.

I trust her.

That is enough. More than…