Sabina Kadic-Mackenzie is a survivor of the Bosnian War, and passionate advocate for leadership, empathy in business, and the transformative power of resilience.
A chair of the genocide education charity Beyond Srebrenica, Sabina brings a deeply human and profoundly powerful perspective to the workplace. Having survived the Bosnian War as a child, her lived experience of war, loss, displacement, and rebuilding informs every aspect of her leadership philosophy – one grounded in empathy, courage, and clarity of purpose.
Sabina’s talks go far beyond traditional leadership theory. Drawing from the trauma of losing her home, her community, and nearly everything she knew, she shares how surviving unimaginable adversity sharpened the skills that now define her success: navigating uncertainty, leading through crisis, and operating with integrity in complex environments. Her story is not just about surviving, but about transforming pain into purpose — and using that purpose to inspire others to lead with humanity.
In her talks, Sabina helps professionals and leadership teams to:
Develop greater empathy and emotional intelligence through the lens of lived trauma.
Build resilient, inclusive teams that support – and benefit from – diverse lived experiences.
Make values-based decisions under pressure and in complex, high-stakes environments.
Identify and overcome unconscious bias and ‘othering’ in the workplace.
Cultivate cultural sensitivity and global awareness in leadership and communications.
Improve crisis response by learning to operate in uncertainty and make decisions with limited information.
Foster psychological safety by truly listening and making space for unheard voices.
Inject courage and humanity into leadership – and a bit of humour too – to navigate even the darkest challenges.
She shows that the ability to listen deeply, make decisions in uncertainty, call out injustice, and bring perspective to even the hardest situations are not just survival mechanisms – they are leadership superpowers. Sabina’s presence is as compelling as her message: thoughtful, warm, candid and sharp, with an ability to hold space for difficult truths while building bridges of understanding.
Her story is a powerful call to action: to lead with empathy, to choose integrity in the grey areas, and to create workplaces where people aren’t just expected to perform, but are truly supported to belong and thrive.
