featured speakers

Born to a family of Holocaust survivors, Michelle was accustomed to living with fear. But when she moved to New York, she quickly realized that the “Big Apple” was not for the fearful. In order to rewrite her definition of fear and change her approach to life, Michelle decided to face 100 of her fears over a period of 100 days, uploading every experience to YouTube to share them with the world. At around day 40, the project was discovered by the media and became a viral phenomenon. Her work has been featured on CBS, CNN, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Fox News, Telemundo, Glamour, Elle, The Rachael Ray Show, Refinery29, and Daily Mail among many other outlets. Celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Sofia Vergara, Zooey Deschanel, Lil Wayne, and George Takei all shared Michelle’s project, generating millions of views for it. In 2017, Michelle started speaking to the younger generation. Since then, she has empowered over 20,000 students at schools and universities around the world to live with courage, find their authenticity, and embrace their growth paths.

Early on in her career, Michelle worked as an art director at Young & Rubicam for brands such as Hershey’s, Wendy’s, AT&T, and Revlon. She holds a Masters of Branding from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.