What an organiser needs from it
An organiser uses your bio to introduce you on stage, fill a programme and promote the event. They need three things: the topic you speak on, why you are credible on it, and why it matters to this audience. They will not use a CV, so a bio that reads like one gets cut or rewritten by someone who does not know you.
The four sentences
Most bios that get used as written follow the same shape.
- Who you are and the topic you speak on.
- Why you are credible on it: the role, the work or the research behind it.
- What the audience takes away.
- Optional: one human detail, or where to find more.
Lengths organisers ask for
Keep a version for each of these and adapt them from one master text. The word counts are working guides; if the event gives you a limit, use theirs.
- Introduction read aloud: about 40 to 60 words.
- Programme or website: about 75 to 100 words.
- Press kit: about 150 to 200 words.
A template to fill in
Replace each bracket with a true fact and cut any sentence you cannot fill.
[Name] speaks about [topic] for [type of audience].
[Name] [role, work or research that makes them credible on the topic].
Audiences leave with [specific takeaway].
More at [website].
Tailor it to the event
Keep the facts identical and change the order. Put the part of your work that matters most to this audience in the first sentence. A conference of engineers and a leadership retreat can hear about the same career from a different starting point.
Mistakes to avoid
These are the ones that make an organiser reach for the delete key.
- Listing every stage you have spoken on.
- Never naming the topic.
- Humour that only works in your voice and falls flat when someone else reads it aloud.
- Adjectives with nothing behind them.
- Different bios on different websites and profiles.
Where the bio lives on your website
A speaker's website works best when all three lengths and a downloadable photograph are one click from the first screen, so an organiser does not have to write to you to find them. We set this up as part of a speaker site, and we write the short and long biography with you in the positioning step.
Want this done for you? Speaker website design shows how we work.