Samara Bay

SAMARA BAY is a sought-after speech coach and thought leader on a mission to change how power sounds. Her clients include Hollywood stars, C-suite execs, candidates for U.S. Congress, activists, diplomats, moms returning to work, and high school girls who want to make a difference. Behind the scenes, she helps leaders and rising leaders on the cusp of something big—who need to speak with confidence and joy in a voice they recognize as their own to truly make sh*t happen.

In her debut book Permission to Speak (Crown/Penguin Random House), Samara blends moving anecdotes with practical tools and eye-opening research in linguistics, leadership, and social science. And offers this provocation: when we change what power sounds like, we change who has it. Her work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, CBS Sunday Morning, NBC’s “Know Your Value,” The Tamron Hall Show, Netflix is a Joke, Slate, and Jezebel.

For leadership and communication coaching, Samara has partnered with Moveon.org, The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, and Microsoft, and run workshops for corporations, women’s organizations, foundations, and universities. In Hollywood, she’s been hired by everyone from Marvel to Netflix to help movie stars integrate good acting with good accents. TV and film clients include: Gal Gadot, Pierce Brosnan, Penelope Cruz, Ricky Martin, Rachel McAdams, Terry Crews, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Ruth Negga, and Rosie O'Donnell.

Samara has a BA in English from Princeton and an MFA in acting from Brown. She received media training from Al Gore’s climate team, improv training from UCB, and speech training from world-renowned teachers at Juilliard, The RSC, ACT, The Public Theater, and Yale. She sits on the advisory boards of Young Entertainment Activists (YEA!), DemocraShe, and the world’s first community-led accent app, Spikizi. Samara lives on the eastside of Los Angeles, with her husband, son, and dog,
Moxie.