Meet Ali
Keynote Speaker | Disability Advocate
Dark Humor Enthusiast & Professional Quadripelegic
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Buy Ali's Memoir!
Unbreakable(ish)
I Wasn’t Built For Boring
🎉Launched July 2025 🎉
Watch Ali's TEDx Talk!
Turning Paralysis into Purpose
Embracing Adversity to Achieve Success
One of the top 50 most watched TEDx talks in 2024!
I believe that embracing adversity is a superpower each of us possesses, if only we learn how to harness it for good.
As a young woman, I made it my goal to live the story of my life every day. And what a story it’s been so far.
Global adventures and daring exploration were part of my unique life from a young age. Whether I was living in Europe in the Bahamas or traveling to almost every continent around the world — I craved an independent life on my own terms.
I even moved to China at 16 years old to immerse myself in a new culture for a few years before shifting careers to graduating from The University of Miami in Entrepreneurship to then worked for the Rockefeller family in politics.
My story would soon morph into one of survival and strength that I did not see coming.
In 2010, my life transformed at 27 when a tragic shallow water diving accident left me a C6 quadriplegic.
Paralyzed from the chest down, I spent 7 years in hospitals enduring multiple life-altering diagnoses and grappling with hopelessness. I’ll never forget while my dad said to me in the ICU after undergoing lifesaving spinal surgery once again in China again in 2013. “Darling, you broke your body, not your brain, get to work!”
Translation: Your mind is your most powerful asset; You have to KEEP MOVING FORWARD.
Despite being convinced that my life had reached its untimely end, I open my mind to transformation and discovered how to alter my thinking to KEEP MOVING FORWARD despite my physical limitations.
Most importantly, I firmly believe you can too.
Ali brings a powerful story and inspirational message when she speaks. She spoke at our Annual MedTech Conference in Anaheim California with over 4000 attendees to Becton Dickinson (CEO) Tom Polen for a fireside chat on health equity access. Comments and feedback were overwhelmingly and enthusiastically positive. She quite frankly was the highlight of our conference day.
RAY BRISCUSO, Executive VP, Conference & Events Advamed / Advanced Medical Technology Association
I turned my despair into something I could use: embracing my paralysis as a catalyst for transformation.
In doing so, I have tapped into unforeseen opportunities as a professional speaker, corporate disability consultant, and fierce disability advocate in my community.
In 2023, I was crowned Ms. Wheelchair America for efforts in changing landmark Medicare legislation, and in April 2024 I delivered my first TEDx Talk, “Keep Moving Forward: Embracing Adversity to Make You Stronger.”
Despite quadriplegia, I vow to Keep Moving Forward and now work with thousands of individuals to help them break free from psychological paralysis.
I’m inspired each and every day to focus on helping others, personally and professionally, in finding a purpose through a blend of psychology and neuroscience to redefine what happiness, success, and responsibility entail in many of our own lives.
Most importantly, I believe it’s not just what you do, but also about why you do it.
Using the lens of my own disability story, I get up on stage to change one life at a time.
“It’s not about me, it’s about authentically helping others to find their own path in life.”
Professional Achievements
International Keynote Speaker
Ali has presented over 500 keynotes and training workshops around the world. Audiences range from corporations, universities, disability organizations, and more.
Her thought-provoking and inspiring programs are ideal as conference keynotes as Ali’s topics integrate a variety of in-demand topics.
Ali graduated from the University of Miami Herbert Business School in 2006 with a BBA degree in Entrepreneurship and won the prestigious Business Plan Competition at the Business School’s Rothschild Prize.
Inclusion Consultant and Strategy
After being bullied as a child and the target of discrimination in the corporate world when applying to jobs, Ali started using her knowledge and experience to help organizations and corporations advance inclusion, belonging, and wellness through the use of harnessing diversity of thought.
Ali now works with dozens of corporations to reduce employee burnout, which costs organizations over $300 billion a year.
Disability Advocate - Ms. Wheelchair America 2023
Keep moving forward isn’t just a catchy life motto. After being denied medically necessary equipment Ali needed to physically survive in her life by health insurance companies, she learned to navigate the health insurance appeals process.
She took this work national by partnering on landmark legislation changes with Medicare for the use of power seat elevators. This successful mission lead to her being humbly crowned Ms. Wheelchair America 2023 for her advocacy efforts.
Non-Profit Advocate
Ali firmly believes in donating 20 percent of her week to giving back to her community. She has been appointed by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to the Statewide Independent Living Council and she is the Chairwoman of the Board for Alliance of Disability Advocates, as well as a Board member of Mobility Trust Group, Board member of Billion Strong, Board member of the United Spinal Association, on the Board of advisors for the Next Step Foundation, a Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Advocate.
A documentary of Ali’s life will be released worldwide in 2025, which she hopes will inspire others to learn how to turn their own passions into a meaningful plan within their own lives.
Published Author
Ali has published dozens of articles in magazines and for organizations around the world alongside her debut book and memoir, Unbreakable(ish)
which launched in July of 2025. Ali believes in normalizing highly uncomfortable topics within the disability community through the use of dark humor and determination in her blog “The Quirky Quad.”
Ali also published a blog during her several years living in China for life-saving spinal surgery chronicling her life in the “China Quad Diaries.”
Scuba Diver, Hang Glider, Surfing, New Experience Adventure Seeker
Disability doesn’t mean inability. When Ali is not pursuing her professional purpose, Ali’s personal passion is to travel around the world engaging in extreme adaptive adventure sports.
She still embodies living life to its fullest and enjoys inspiring others with disabilities to live their best life. Ali’s contagious energy will inspire you never to take anything for granted. “For the story,” right?
