Maria Franzoni
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Maria Franzoni

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Maria Franzoni works with speakers, speaker agents, and speaker bureau teams to help them build profitable, sustainable speaking businesses. In practical terms, that means more bookings, higher fees, and clearer commercial positioning in a crowded and often misunderstood market. Maria brings over 25 years of senior-level experience from inside the professional speaking industry. She held leadership roles at two of Europe’s most established speaker bureaus, CSA Celebrity Speakers and the London Speaker Bureau, which was described by the New York Times as “the only international speaker bureau”. In 2007, she founded her own multi-million-pound international bureau, Maria Franzoni Ltd, representing speakers globally and negotiating thousands of speaking engagements across every major sector. Over the course of her career, Maria has worked with some of the most recognised figures in the speaking world, including Neil Armstrong, Dame Stella Rimingon, Sir Ken Robinson, Richard Branson and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Alongside this, she has mentored and trained countless speakers, agents, and bureau teams, with a consistent focus on raising standards, improving professionalism, and helping people understand what actually drives bookings. Maria is the author of the best-seller: The Bookability Formula - What the 1% Most Booked Speakers Do and You Can Too. The book distils decades of commercial insight into a clear framework that explains why a small percentage of speakers secure the majority of high-value work, and what others can do differently to join them. She is the founder and chief mentor at Speaking Business Academy, where she and her team train speakers, experts, and bureau professionals on the business side of speaking. She also hosts the Speaking Business Podcast, sharing practical tactics and strategies from trusted industry insiders. Before specialising in the speaking industry, Maria worked in retail management, management consultancy, educational travel, and as an entrepreneur, founding five businesses. This broader commercial background underpins her pragmatic, no-nonsense approach to helping speakers turn expertise into income.
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