NSB Logo Jeff Perera Jeff Perera

Jeff Perera

Speaker

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Inspiring Healthy Models of Manhood & Masculinity Today

With a focus of creating a warm, inviting and dynamic environment for learning and unlearning, Jeff Perera has been speaking to a variety of audiences across North America since 2008. Seeking to build bridges across today’s tensions regarding topics such as gender and masculinities and our seeming oceans of difference, Jeff invites audiences to explore and embrace new ways forward. Through upbeat presentations inspiring transformative conversations about what moving from harmful to helpful and mindful ideas of manhood can look like, Jeff offers actionable ways to be more equitable and inclusive. Together we can nurture more dynamic and productive environments where we work, live, worship, play, and study.

Health Current Events Human Rights & Social Change Youth & Campus Event Theme Ideas

In the News

Jeff Talks to Yahoo! Canada about men and mental health July 9, 2023
Telling Male Friends 'I Love You' Is A Muscle Guys Need To Flex Every Day February 11, 2020
How Jeff Perera is using support — rather than shame — to guide men towards a new idea of manhood October 7, 2019
Awoken Word | Jeff Perera - "Mankind. Kind Men" January 19, 2019

Keynote Speeches

Virtual Keynotes & Webinars
Contact us for more information about this speaker & their virtual presentations. Click here for some of the most popular formats for virtual events.
Drawing Maps to Manhood: Rejecting The Ladder of Manhood

More than ever, people today are having conversations about our ideas of masculinity and manhood. Jeff illustrates how the rituals and path we set for men and boys to achieve manhood are like a ladder we climb which is rigged to fail us all. He challenges us to rethink these harmful ideas leading to a self-defeating pursuit of identity as men. What are the traditions handed down here? What do you want them to be? Where are you on this ladder based on various aspects of your identity? Jeff explores how all this reinforces a certain definition of manhood that limits us all. Jeff encourages men to embrace new models of manhood and forge new maps, and new paths forward. Together we look at how men and young men can become part of a change that impacts us all.

Looking Under the Hood: Identifying Gender Bias at Work

Invite  Jeff Perera for a session with a fresh approach to a challenging but important conversation. Together we’ll explore ways to identify our unconscious gender biases as roadblocks impeding our abilities to be better colleagues, community members and friends.

Men Building Emotional Muscle

Just as we build physical muscle, we can learn to build or re-build and strengthen our emotional literacy like a muscle. Being in touch with what we are feeling is our strength. Empathy is the muscle that leads to taking action and finding connection. As men, we can go to the ‘Emotional Gym’ together, learn to lean on one another to have hard conversations, support one another, and develop our emotional literacy. We can spot one another as we learn how to nurture and grow our relationships, connections and friendships.

Building Bridges Between our Differences

In an era of divides, how can we inspire one another to work past ‘the illusion of our separateness’ and find ways to nurture spaces of respect, and build community amongst people? Invite Jeff to talk with your group about facing hard truths, and doing the gardening work to cultivate environments where we all can thrive and bloom!

Speaking in a Language of Consent

In this session, Jeff creates a courageous space to have some real, honest conversations about the many ways we interact with one another from everyday interactions to romantic and sexual situations. Consent is a conversation we tend to have backwards: we start at the end. The conversation actually starts before we meet someone, and it continues with the person we meet and get to know (whether it is a one night interaction or a lifelong relationship). Rather than transactional, we can approach every interaction as a collaborative one. 

Additional Topics
  • Gardening Tips on Cultivating the Workplace Culture we want
  • Being Better Teammates to People of All Genders
  • Developing an Inner Compass as Men
  • Facing Hard Truths and Striving to be an Ally
  • Men Respecting Emotional PPE

Audience reviews:

  • What I learned from Jeff Perera tonight is that we're all human. We're all trying to break through the fear and just be our authentic self. I guess I never really thought about it from the male perspective. We're all aware of the struggles women face in the media and in society etc but we don't we take the same amount of time to understand the affects on boys and men. And when you DO take the time you realize it's huge. The messages are EVERYWHERE telling boys & men to hide their vulnerability & PROVE their "masculinity". I'm honestly pretty humbled and enlightened.

    - Stephanie Mulhall, Kindness Changes Everything
 

Speaker Biography

Jeff Perera builds bridges between people of all genders having spoken to tens of thousands of people across North America since 2008 about gender, masculinity, empathy-building, and men helping end gender-based violence. Whether in the boardroom, on campus, or the locker room, we need more positive and mindful examples of ways to be a man today. Jeff is a storyteller inspiring new models of possibility for men and young men, as well as healthier versus harmful ideas of manhood where we work, live, play, worship or study. He has delivered two TEDx talks: ‘Words Speak Louder Than Actions’ looking at the power of gendered words, and ‘The Ladder of Manhood’ which explores the male pursuit of identity and how too many men are fluent in a language of violence.

From Rogers Media, Mackenzie Investments, Klick Canada, and Canada Post, to numerous organizations and campuses, Jeff has delivered interactive talks for team leaders and groups of all genders, fields, creeds, and faiths within various organizations, conferences, and spaces. His work helps nurture open, courageous conversations, inspiring all of us to strive towards the best personal and professional version of ourselves: challenging our gendered ideas of success and failure and being the lesson in action. Jeff helps spark an ongoing conversation of the positive traditions and culture we can cultivate in unison. This is a moment to see where we can go and grow together, furthering and nurturing an inclusive corporate culture and workplace or learning environment. Together we will explore themes like Men Building Emotional Muscle. developing an Inner Compass as Men, Facing Hard Truths and Striving to be an Ally,

As a man of colour having helped audiences get comfortable unpacking uncomfortable issues in an engaging, inviting space with an upbeat presentation style, Jeff regularly contributes thought leadership through writing and appearances on podcasts and interviews exploring how limiting ideas of gender impact us all in everyday life. A way forward starts with us, within us. 

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