PREPARE THE ROOM.
BUILD THE IMPACT.

Full biography

Capability is built before pressure arrives.

Ivana Ries is a corporate keynote speaker and capability builder whose work sits at the intersection of human performance, adaptability, decision-making and real-world pressure.

She is the founder of Storm Combat and architect of Integrated Combat Systems. A Black Belt Krav Maga instructor with extensive experience across close-quarter combat, tactical firearms and bladed weapons, Ivana has trained police, bodyguards, private military personnel, security professionals, emergency responders and civilians. She has also spent decades building and leading businesses—making decisions where there is no script, no perfect certainty and no luxury of standing still.

That combination gives Ivana a distinctive lens on corporate performance. She examines how people notice change, regulate their response, challenge obsolete assumptions and act when familiar answers no longer fit. Her expanding body of work also addresses the human side of AI disruption: the capabilities people and organisations must strengthen as technology changes tasks, roles and expectations.

Her style combines authority with warmth, humour, practical demonstration and audience participation. People are challenged without being alienated—and leave with sharper thinking and practical capability, not a temporary motivational high.