Who is Andrea?
Andrea T. Edwards CSP is a truth-teller, strategist, and advocate for a liveable future. She decodes the polycrisis for leaders and changemakers, turning complexity into clarity, so we can act with courage, not fear. A Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), trainer, coach, mentor, author, blogger, live streamer, podcaster and community builder, she's on a mission to mobilize one billion people to fight for what matters – a liveable earth.
A global odyssey
Andrea's career has spanned nearly four decades, where she's lived in five countries, worked across many more, and is never afraid to embrace new opportunities:
- From explaining commercial aircraft technology as a communications professional in aerospace PR, working with the teams building, designing, updating, and maintaining aircraft
- Moving from London to Boston, where she navigated the dot-com boom (and bust), working across the US, and gaining national recognition for her work
- To leading Microsoft's Analyst Relations across Asia, essentially influencing the influencers before influencers became a "thing," again gaining recognition for her work, this time global
- To building her own Social Leadership and content marketing training consultancy in Singapore working across Asia, while establishing herself as a professional speaker, author and a voice for truth in the age of information chaos
Each pivot taught her the same lesson: the future belongs to those who can adapt without losing their core values.
Apart from all the unpaid work I'm doing for society, professionally, the best contribution I can make to the climate crisis is to mobilize senior professionals who work for the world's largest companies to speak up and act. We are the best hope our planet has #ClimateEmergency
@AndreaTEdwards
The awakening
While she's been paying attention all her life, the first big awakening happened in 2017, while walking the plastic-choked beaches in Phuket, Thailand (where she lived with her family for seven years), seeing firsthand the waste of humanity and its impact on nature. A year later the 2018 IPCC Report was released, and that's when she had her professional reckoning. It was time to speak up even more on the planetary crisis, with all the courage she had.
Beyond the waste, the brutal reality of climate change hit hard, with rising deadly heat in Asia getting worse every year, while floods, devastating landslides, and storms displaced or killed the most vulnerable, all of which made climate change not just data on a screen but a lived reality.
Until this point, her privilege let her ride the wave of globalization, but the tide was turning. That's when she stopped just focusing on her career and what she could get from life, and started fighting for the future, especially for those without a voice – the people and living beings impacted by the escalating crisis'.
Will we ever get the message?
@AndreaTEdwards
Understanding the polycrisis
As Andrea extensively researched the risks we face over the last decade, she knew this wasn't about isolated challenges, instead it was a complex, interconnected "polycrisis," where multiple systems are failing at the same time.
These issues include:
- Climate breakdown driving extreme weather, biodiversity loss, extinction, and water scarcity
- Social fracturing through inequality, tribalism, and the collapse of trust
- Economic instability from resource constraints and financial system vulnerabilities
- Information chaos through misinformation, disinformation and propaganda
- And technological disruption from AI and automation changing the nature of work and society
While just a few examples, Andrea understood that none of the crises we face exist in isolation, they amplify each other, creating a meta-crisis that demands new thinking.
What Andrea brings to the table
Today, she operates at the intersection of:
- Real-world experience – having advised senior executives behind closed doors in multiple countries, she speaks the language of business fluently
- Systems thinking – a cross-industry journey gives her unique perspectives on interconnected challenges
- Uncommon Courage – also the title of her book, she has the willingness to name uncomfortable truths while maintaining the conviction that a future path is possible
Her work: meeting today's complex challenges
In a world facing unparalleled, interconnected challenges, organizations need strategic guidance and practical wisdom to navigate uncertainty. Andrea brings four decades of global experience to help leaders, and their teams, transform complexity into opportunity. Her comprehensive approach addresses both strategic direction and people empowerment, delivering tangible results across these key service areas:
Speaking truth as a CSP
As a speaking professional, she challenges audiences to face hard truths and act with courage. This isn't about inspiration, it's about imperfect action.
Empowering Social Leaders
Through workshops and coaching, she helps professionals step into their voices – on social media and beyond – because silence only cedes the narrative to those we disagree with.
Guiding business leaders
Executive roundtables and 1-2-1 coaching helping industries confront the polycrisis head-on, transforming risk into responsibility and profit into purpose.
Untangling the polycrisis
Understanding interconnected global risks, systemic drivers, and how we respond
Through structured training, she helps participants understand the interconnected challenges we face and identify practical actions across government, business, NGOs, and personal spheres.
Executive coaching and mentoring
Andrea works with ripple makers – people who want to drive wider change at the community, business, country, regional or even global level. She guides you to identify your opportunity and helps you see the path to create massive momentum.
Educating on the polycrisis
Through The Weekend Reads and her social media commitment, she breaks down the tangled web of climate collapse, inequality, and systemic failure, because understanding is the first step to action.
Co-hosting The Sh💩t Show
Every Friday, Andrea, along with Dr. David Ko, Richard Busellato and Joe Augustin dissect the polycrisis live, no jargon, no sugar-coating, just honest talk about the mess we're in and how to navigate it. They have a laugh too.
Writing for change
Books like Uncommon Courage, an invitation, and 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile equip people to claim their voice and fight for a liveable future.
Building community
Stay tuned – because the path forward isn't solitary. A global business impact community is coming.
Acting locally
From environmental cleanups to championing grassroots heroes, she believes change starts where we live.
Recognition
Climate Reality Leadership Corps
Andrea successfully completed The Climate Reality Project's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training on September 9, 2026.
In today's world, our voice is powerful, we are powerful AND we are the majority. So please, speak up, because it's time to believe this fundamental truth and join the team creating a better world for ourselves and future generations.
@AndreaTEdwards
Why this matters now
Every leader Andrea speaks with wants to feel safe to discuss these challenges and understand how they can be part of the change the world needs to embrace. However, they are also pressurized to deliver results which they know are part of the problem, and honestly, everyone is scared for their future, and for the future of their teams. We all have bills to pay.
But this is Andrea's mission – to be the bridge between paralysis and progress. To shine a light on the path forward, because collapse isn't inevitable, it's a choice.
This is the time to embrace a global renewal of how our societies operate. We need to rewire how we harness energy, rebuild our economies, rebalance power, confront the colonial structures that still shape our world, restore ecosystems, regenerate nature, and most importantly, reconnect with one another.
This is not naïve optimism. It is the only viable path forward. Let’s choose it.
Let's build what comes next
Andrea believes in a future where business becomes a force for regeneration, and true success is measured in generations rather than quarters. If you're ready to help build it; she's here to help.
Andrea isn't sharing a message of hope, because hope without action is pointless. No, this is about doing. The polycrisis won't wait, and neither can we. Together, we'll cut through the noise, own our voices, and build a future worthy of the next generations.
The clock is ticking, but the path forward is clear. Let's walk it together.
Highlights from her
personal story
When did you first realize you were a digital leader?
I don't think I've ever thought of myself that way. I just love what I do, and the thing I love the most is knowledge, sharing information that I believe can make a difference, and conversations around subjects that impact the world. I've always shared knowledge, even before we had social media.
As an example, I used to find great stories in newspapers when I was working in London, and I'd fax them (remember faxes?) halfway around the world to my friends in Australia back in the early 90s. I love sharing stories. Social media and the digital world has opened that up, and for someone like me, it's heaven. Knowledge is a beautiful thing.
Three things from early on that influenced your perspective:
Playing in brass bands taught me the value of community, but more importantly, teamwork. When more than 30 people work together for months to get great enough to compete at National level, your personal commitment is critical. You practise and practise and practise, and you make a lot of sacrifices, because that is what's required if you want to win. And we did want to win.
However, it was always the same one or two people, that didn't commit, who would let the group down on the day and I was always immensely disappointed in that. It taught me a lot – namely, not everyone is cut from the same cloth. My Army days further deepened that lesson, and gave me more empathy too.
My dad was a great influence musically, but more so with reading and feeding my massive curiosity. We always had orchestral music blaring through the house (which I still love) and copies of National Geographic on hand anytime we felt like reading it.
He is also a fantasy reader, so he introduced me to a lifelong passion for fantasy books (not Sci-Fi) – which opens your imagination and taps into your creativity. It also gives you a tool to escape the world – something we all need these days.
My passion for history has always been immense and I studied it all through school and into university too. It's determined where I've travelled, what I read, and I am always referring to moments in history which demonstrate, once again, we are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over. We just don't seem to learn, do we?
History should be one of the most important subjects taught in school. I know a few leaders that could benefit from it right now… my passion for history gave me my passion for travel, and it was through my extensive travels all over the world that I discovered an equal passion – and that is for people. We're essentially good.
You've been a business insider. How does this influence your speaking?
I think the most important experience of being on the "inside" of large corporations is you know what it feels like to sit in their shoes. You know what their days look like. The pressures they face. The never-ending cycle of business. The anxiety around speaking up in corporations that have never valued the broader employee voice. And you know how little time is left to prioritize on themselves!
So, when I've had the opportunity to work with senior leadership teams and employees who are ready to embrace social leadership, I know how to do it in a way that takes all of their current responsibilities into account.
As speakers and trainers, I believe we must be cognizant of that, because if we do not, we can't help our clients succeed. Regardless of all the challenges professionals face, helping them see that the social leadership opportunity is the health insurance of their career and that's my biggest priority – it's a career miss for them if they don't embrace it!
I'm also committed to their success, because if they don't succeed, I don't succeed, which is why I never just blow in and blow out again. I need to keep the momentum going for the long term to ensure they get started, start winning, and really grasp how powerful what I am speaking about is to each member of my audience.
What do you want those who engage you to know about what you will bring?
I bring a depth to social leadership that I believe is rare. Along with my extensive public relations and communications background, I have lived in the social world since it started, learning all the lessons (good and bad – hey, I'm a female blogger) and I have a message of succeeding with integrity at the center of being a social leader.
So many times, I hear cynicism about social leadership, because what is happening on the digital channels – more often than not – is turning leaders away.
They do not like what they are seeing, and I agree with them! My message is different. We do not do social media because it's in our KPIs, we do it with real intention from the start. We must dig deep into our individual purpose, and speak from there – with integrity, authenticity, serving an audience, giving to our communities, and elevating other's lives. This is a core tenet of my message.
It is not about you. It's about your audience. I also bring wide knowledge across business and world issues (because that is what I do – constantly read and seek to understand the threads of information, as well as the public mood around hot issues, which means I can guide anyone on any topic they want to own), plus as a bonus, I think I'm pretty funny too – and I'm proud of the fact my humour works across cultures.
For motivation, power and practical action, Hire Andrea T Edwards to speak at your conference, event or leadership program.
Click here for detailsAndrea's critical edge has always been in helping her clients succeed due to her nearly four decades of professional experience, two-decade-long commitment to Social Leadership, AND her intuitive talent to understand how to effectively connect with audiences – employees, customers, prospects, stakeholders, and influencers – in a way that deeply resonates and gets results.
She's won global awards for her work in B2B communications over her career and has had the privilege of working in every corner of our world.
Because of her extensive background, and devotion to comprehending and piecing together all aspects of the polycrisis (especially in the last decade), she brings all her experience, talents and knowledge together, operating as a strategic guide for organizations navigating today's complex business landscape.
Experience & expertise
Her work covers two pillars:
1. Strategic Advisory: guiding organizations through the polycrisis with clarity and purpose
2. People Empowerment: transforming organizations by activating their greatest asset, their people
For more than two decades, Andrea has lived and worked across Asia Pacific and sees it as a privilege to be based in this region as we enter The Asian Century, however, it's also a hot spot for navigating the polycrisis as the temperature rises – both physically and metaphorically.
A world-wide journey of experience
Andrea started working fulltime in 1992, kicking off her professional journey as a Musician in the Australian Army, after which she transferred to the PR Unit of the Australian Defence Force. An interesting beginning.
She's held senior roles in NYC, Boston, London, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne for organizations as diverse as Aerospace Technologies of Australia (now Boeing), Text 100 International, Guinness Brewing, IDC and Microsoft, to name a few.
Her roles have ranged from Chairman of the Asia Content Marketing Association (ACMA), Analyst Relations Lead for Microsoft Asia, and running SAJE, her own communications, content marketing, and messaging agency, which has now evolved into her work today to help get leaders ready for the challenges ahead.
Andrea fully embraced the early online world, and she's still going after nearly two decades – she's still blogging and sharing content through her social media updates and The Weekend Reads, as well as her weekly livestream The Sh*t Show, and podcast, Uncommon Courage, as well as through her books.
The personal story…
Andrea grew up in rural Australia, playing in the local brass band with her family. As a teenager she enjoyed cycling, bodybuilding, and swimming in the mighty Murray River, whose might has diminished in recent decades. Andrea left country living for Monash University, Melbourne, where she studied music and archaeology, then onto the Australian Army as a professional musician. She played Euphonium, which you can see here.
Since those early days, she's spent half her life living, working and travelling to countries other than her own. Andrea can never get enough of the beauty and diversity of our natural world, as well as its magnificent archaeology and history.
But even deeper than that, people are her passion, in all their glorious differences. Of course, there are "bad people" (although Andrea thinks of them as broken more than bad), but her life experiences have convinced her that most of humanity is fundamentally awesome!
We all want the same things too – peace, stability, a roof over our heads, and an opportunity to raise and educate healthy children, with a smile on our faces most of the time. In her wanderings she has discovered that people everywhere are not so different.
For decades Andrea has taken up the mantle as a warrior for Mother Earth, a calling that has only gotten stronger as the implications of what we are doing to our planetary home are laid bare. She will do all she can to help in this fight, including using her professional experience to make an impact.
That's where her work in the executive ranks comes in, because she believes she can make a difference in getting business leaders to listen and step up so we can avoid the worst possible outcomes of the climate catastrophe, as well as to build equal, equitable businesses in alignment with nature.
We cannot continue to build or grow on what we have, that would be foolish. No, the future needs to be very different, but that doesn't mean worse – unless we don't do it, which guarantees it will be worse.
But the years and decades ahead will be challenging regardless – we can't get away from that. We have gone too far, so it's time to appreciate that, as well as get to work on navigating the road ahead, with honesty, integrity and courage.
Andrea is also driven to make empathy and compassion the critical driving force in today's world. Backing up our talk in how we present ourselves is critical to being authentic and trustworthy – at a time when those qualities are so lacking, and yet in demand. Mis- and disinformation, societal divisions, trolls and Bott farms, along with AI, only amplifies that challenge.
Finally, Andrea can't escape being Australian – but there's a bonus in that. It gives you licence to be bold and cheeky, which she loves. However, these days, she is more than her nationality after living around the world, which has helped her develop deep-rooted cultural intelligence, and an appreciation of nuance in a world that has lost the skill!
On the home front, she's fortunate to be married to a magnificent Englishman, Steve, and together they have enjoyed raising two compassionate, empathetic, and (mostly) gentlemanly sons (Lex and Jax) who are now emerging into the world as young adults, with their dreams ahead of them. Andrea wants to make sure achieving those dreams is a possibility, not just for them, but for all children. We owe our kids that.
Her boys, from this…
To this!
Many say it happens in the blink of an eye. Andrea believes it was fast, and very VERY slow!
Client perspective
What clients respect
Videos
The Overwhelm
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