CSP business keynote speaker Mary Charleson delivers marketing and social media strategy insight to associations, corporate audiences, entrepreneur groups, and the education sector with actions to get attendees achieving better results. Her unique combined experience as both a marketing strategist and a travel content creator make her an excellent choice for a marketing focused keynote to a travel industry audience.

With marketing, social media and digital trends always custom applied for the client or industry, she delivers inspiring stories and examples, backed with proven methods, so audiences walk away with actionable take-home value.

Her “Top 10 marketing and consumer trends” keynote is revised annually. It features research on why the trend is happening, and what actions attendees should take. There is an opportunity for industry examples to be customized specifically for client needs. Her “Unpacking Marketing Strategy for the Travel Industry” is particularly popular with travel-based clients due to its highly customized examples and niche industry insights. The “Think Like a Media Mogul” keynote helps people understand the importance of leveraging owned, rented, earned, embedded and paid media to represent their brand in a unified manner, while maximizing exposure.

Taking a page from her travel media brand carryonqueen.com (awarded second place in 2025 for Best Self-Published Travel Website by Travel Media Association of Canada), and experience as an adventure travel content creator and writer, Mary also delivers an "Adventure Travel for 50+" keynote to inspire audiences in pursuing adventure, and to assist DMOs in promoting their destinations.

Mary’s marketing programs center around trends, insight and actions, so people walk away with usable strategies that they can implement immediately. Her presentations have been a great fit for conferences, annual general meetings, Franchisee events, association gatherings, university faculty/admin sessions, and sales team events.

Mary is the perfect fit if you want to:

• Be inspired and entertained while learning about marketing
• Receive actionable marketing advice catered to your industry

Mary is the author of two books, Word of Mouth Mouse & Mobile and Five-Minute Marketing. She is a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers and the Global Speakers Federation. Mary is one of fewer than 12% of speakers globally who hold the designation of CSP (Certified Speaking Professional), the international measure of excellence for professional competence and proven experience.

Her career spans over 25 years in media, advertising and education. She has been a popular marketing instructor at City University of Seattle, NYIT (New York Institute of Technology), Capilano University, Acsenda School of Management, and guest lecturer at UBC Sauder School of Business. Mary has worked with hundreds of business and organizations to improve their marketing efforts through consulting and speaking. A contributor to Business in Vancouver since 2002 and a monthly marketing columnist for the Huffington Post, her work has also been published in the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Sun, Marketing Magazine, Strategy, Zoomer, Cottage and Outside magazine. She is frequent guest on CBC TV news offering her opinion on marketing and business trends.

In 2018 Mary launched a new business venture called CarryOnQueen.com, a site focused on travel content creation. (She hasn’t checked a bag in 20 years!) An extension of her passion for writing and travel, she enthusiastically accepts speaking engagements from the travel sector - advising travel businesses, associations and content creators about best practices in marketing and media, in addition to inspiring audiences about adventure travel.

Mary is a graduate of the University of Waterloo, and City University of Seattle where she did her MBA in marketing.

What you can expect

• Prompt attention: You’ll speak directly with Mary. Phone calls returned. Deadlines met

• Custom presentation: Highly customized content that fits your industry

• Low maintenance: No hand-holding required. Comes prepared and arrives early

• Deva free zone: Mary is about as down to earth as they come

Your event experience

Pre-event

• Client call to inform the customization of content based on your needs, audience profile

• Willing to produce a customized video to include in your emails or embed in your registration page, which can significantly increase registrations

• Provide a newsletter or blog content article for you to use in promoting the event

During the event

• Arrives early to be able to incorporate customization from the event

• Willing to participate in networking and socializing with attendees. Plus she’s fun!

After the event

• Willing to pre-record content delivery in a virtual format, to be made available to attendees for a limited time via a private YouTube link after the event. This can help reinforce the message, or be shared with those unable to attend the session live

Mary travels from Vancouver, BC Canada

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"Mary is a consummate professional and someone we look to when putting together our conference content. Whether it’s our flagship event in Las Vegas, where she’s presented the past few years, to hundreds of attentive travel advisors or our more intimate Owners event where she’ll go into much greater detail, Mary brings it! We look forward to welcoming her back to Las Vegas once again in 2023 and hope to have the opportunity to collaborate with her for many more years to come." - Jim Cloonan, President, Travel Show Marketing Group

"Mary's work with US Travel as a marketing expert and travel content creator has been invaluable in contributing as a lead judge for the ESTO Awards. Her mentoring and review guidelines on how to patiently, thoroughly, and genuinely judge entries helped guide other judges. The US Travel Association and The Stamoulis Group are truly appreciative." - Teresa Stamoulis, ESTO Awards Program Manager, and CEO Stamoulis Group, Tourism Destination Marketing & CA Route 66

"We're thrilled to have Mary Charleson as a member of our Journey Woman Speakers Bureau." - Carolyn Ray, Owner, CEO & Editor, Journey Woman, Women Over 50 Travel

"Our team took some great ideas away and we're already using them for our trade show next week and an event at the end of the month." – Michael Drake, Director of Sales, Tourism Vancouver Meetings & Conventions, International/Canada

"I can't thank Mary Charleson enough for being a keynote speaker for WPN Bellingham. Our group of professional women was thrilled with her presentation. Not only did she customize it specifically for us, she also delivered excellent, usable information that we could apply to our businesses that same day. Mary is a media and marketing expert and she was savvy enough to leave the jargon at home and really speak to us in layman's terms. We've already had requests to have her back." – Jessica Renner, Speaker Chair, Womens Professional Network Bellingham

"Mary's presentation got everyone thinking of how the power of word-of-mouth is amplified by word of mouse and mobile in the digital age. Rich with compelling, real-life examples, Mary's presentation reflets her highly attuned perspective on how an organization's reputation is built or broken by the way stakeholders interact with its brand." – Victoria Miles, Conference Chair, Canadian Association of Communicators in Education

"Many thanks for the excellent presentation on how to leverage our media for marketing. Judging by the note takers during the presentation there was some keen interest." – Henry Walthert, Executive Director, Wood Preservation Canada

"Mary is an engaging and dynamic speaker whose presentations on marketing and sales are entertaining and content-rich. When we featured Mary as a speaker at a marketing event, our audience was very diverse, yet we were delighted at how relevant she made marketing trends and tips to everyone. Mary GETS it – she has a solid grasp of how marketing works, and she is particularly adept at communicating in a clear, simple and convincing way. Her passion for her industry shines through in her speeches. We were impressed with her authentic, personable approach and her broad expertise and examples across the marketing landscape." – Gail Tibo, Peter Legge International Institute of Sales Excellence Presentation Series Chair, Principal at Incisive Marketing

"Mary has a knack of conveying marketing concepts in a fun way, through real-life examples, videos, and anecdotes for our clients at Small Business BC. She is always ready to address questions, tailor responses, and conjure up relevant tips, thereby demonstrating her expertise on the topic." – Leo Chow, Education Services Manager, Small Business BC

"Mary has great knowledge of marketing and media that she shares in a compelling way with business audiences. Her message resonates particularly well with entrepreneurs who are looking to leverage their efforts for maximum impact with minimum expenditures." – Cathy Kuzel, Chair, The Connected Woman

"One of the best presentations we've ever had. Mary certainly delivered." - Dianna Hambrook, Manager, Burnaby Board of Trade