Sharyn Alfonsi is an award-winning journalist best known for her 11-year tenure at 60 Minutes. Dodging missiles abroad and breaking news at home has earned her three Emmy Awards, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, two Gracie Awards, a Sigma Delta Chi Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award. In 2026, Alfonsi won Ridenhour Prize for Courage for standing up to political pressures to silence her investigation titled “Inside CECOT” and has emerged as one of the most prominent defenders of truth in media.

As a keynote speaker, Sharyn Alfonsi draws on decades in broadcast journalism to deliver lessons on leadership, courage, and performance under pressure. Through career stories and hard-won expertise, she speaks about the leadership qualities that foster healthy and productive workplace cultures; warzone-tested strategies for decision-making in times of crisis; and the contentious state of truth in news media today. Alfonsi also brings her award-winning interviewing prowess to the stage as a moderator for fireside chats and panel discussions. Sharyn Alfonsi is an ideal speaker for colleges, journalism schools, town halls, women’s groups, and corporate leadership events.

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Sharyn Alfonsi’s journalism career is a study in doing it all and doing it exceptionally well. Her reporting has taken her into war zones in Iraq, Gaza, and Afghanistan, onto the ground during Hurricane Katrina, and into the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including a close call in Israel when a missile struck near her position during a shoot.

Alfonsi's defining moment came with "Inside CECOT," her investigation into the treatment of migrants deported to El Salvador's maximum-security prison. When CBS pulled the segment the night before it was set to air, Alfonsi pushed back publicly, warning that letting political silence dictate the news would hand officials a "kill switch" over any story they found inconvenient. The segment ultimately aired largely unchanged—but standing by it came at a cost. Months later, CBS declined to renew her contract, effectively ending the job she'd dreamed of since childhood. For that stand, she received the 2026 Ridenhour Prize for Courage.

Over her career, Alfonsi has interviewed an extraordinary range of newsmakers and cultural icons, moving effortlessly between hard news and human interest. She's sat down with world leaders like Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and secured a high-stakes interview with a Taliban Minister inside Afghanistan. On the entertainment side, she's profiled Beatles legend Paul McCartney in an interview that drew more than 13 million people, comedian Adam Sandler, "Barefoot Contessa" Ina Garten, Jamie Lee Curtis on her career renaissance, and the notoriously shy Chris Stapleton.

Beyond the screen, Alfonsi is an accomplished live interviewer and moderator. She has headlined the Texas Conference for Women multiple times, leading a keynote luncheon conversation with Reese Witherspoon and later interviewing chef and humanitarian José Andrés on stage—bringing the same probing, warm interview style that defines her 60 Minutes work to live audiences.

Alfonsi's path to network television started far from the spotlight: as the weekend weather anchor at KHBS-KHOG-TV ("K-HOG") in Fort Smith, Arkansas, working seven days a week for $12,000 a year. That grind—and the belief that there are no shortcuts to success—became a hallmark of her career and a favorite theme in her talks. Her 2013 commencement address at her alma mater, the University of Mississippi's Meek School of Journalism, built on that same message and was named one of NPR's "Best Commencement Speeches, Ever."

With heart and reverence, Sharyn Alfonsi leaves audiences with a simple but powerful message: the truth is always worth defending.