Keynote Speaker
Alexandra O. Hudson
Founder, Civic Renaissance and Author, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves
General Session: Building a Civic Renaissance in Your City or County
Alexandra Hudson’s book Soul of Civility draws on history, philosophy, and the civic challenges of today to present a new vision for bridging political polarization. From this inspiring keynote session, you will begin to see new patterns for creating practical opportunities for improving the civil discourse in your community.
Alexandra O. Hudson is the author of the bestselling book The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves (St. Martin’s Press), which has catalyzed a national and international conversation about how to restore dignity, respect, and flourishing in divided times. She is the founder of Civic Renaissance, a global community of more than 50,000 readers committed to reviving beauty, goodness, and truth as resources for richer lives today.
A 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, Alexandra’s writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, USA Today, POLITICO, Newsweek, and beyond, and she is a frequent commentator on MSNBC, CBS, PBS, C-SPAN, and Fox News. She also created Storytelling and the Human Condition; a TV series produced by The Great Courses—Netflix for lifelong learners—exploring how stories shape human flourishing.
A sought-after thinker and speaker, Alexandra has advised foreign governments—from the Parliament of Canada to the UK House of Lords—and addressed audiences at institutions such as Yale Law School, Stanford University, and Court of Appeals across the nation. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the London School of Economics, where she studied as a Rotary Scholar.
Today, Alexandra draws on insights from her 100-city book tour and hundreds of conversations with leaders across the world to share what is working in civic life and the revival of civility. She now partners with corporations, communities, schools, and workplaces worldwide to implement practical tools that foster civic, social, and intellectual flourishing. From Carmel, Indiana to Rome, Italy, she equips leaders to cultivate environments where disagreement coexists with dignity and where genuine human thriving becomes possible.
She lives in Indianapolis with her husband and children, where they are restoring a historic Italian Renaissance–style home—an apt metaphor for her life’s work of recovering the wisdom and beauty of the past to serve the needs of the present.