The Sweeney Agency

About Robyn Benincasa - Adventure Racer, Firefighter and Teamwork Expert

Two-time World Champion Eco-Challenge Adventure Racer and San Diego Firefighter Robyn Benincasa knows a thing or two about motivation, leadership and teamwork. These values are what Robyn calls the magic that allows groups of ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things together.

For the past 15 years, she and her teammates have studied extreme teamwork in the most unique and compelling classroom on earth: The jungles of Borneo, the Himalayan peaks of Tibet, the rivers of Fiji, the rain forests of Ecuador and the epic brush fires of Southern California. It is through these harrowing, life-affirming and often hilarious experiences in the world's most grueling challenges that she has emerged with her refreshing and truly unique perspective on what it takes to build the kind of world class teams that succeed against all odds, that triumph in the face of adversity and that go the distance in any endeavor.

Robyn Benincasa has made an art form of extreme performance by competing and winning at the highest levels of sport and business. She spent her youth competing at the state and national level in gymnastics, diving, cross country, and judo in which she became a national champion. Soon after earning a Marketing degree from Arizona State University, Robyn started at the top Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company where she earned the prestigious Rookie of the Year award.

While consistently achieving top sales in her day job, Robyn completed six Ironman races, with two podium finishes. Then the adventure race bug bit.

NBC, ABC, CNN, ESPN, USA Network, The Today Show, Live With Regis, Dateline NBC, The Discovery Channel, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, Harpers Bazaar and Outside Magazine have all featured Robyn and her amazing accomplishments.

Robyn Benincasa inspires people to grab life with one hand, grab their teammates with the other, and to create that special magic that allows each of us to become better and stronger than we ever would have been alone.

What Robyn Benincasa Talks About:

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results: The 8 Essential Elements of Human Synergy
What do the world's most successful teams have in common? The ability to upgrade their teamwork to human synergy! Through her Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results keynote, Eco-Challenge Adventure Racing World Champion and San Diego Firefighter Robyn Benincasa imparts the attitude and mindset that allows groups of ordinary people to accomplish truly extraordinary things together. Attendees will not only walk away completely thrilled with this unique visually and viscerally entertaining look into the world's most amazing extreme teams, they will also leave with some simple and easily applied skills that will allow them to create Human Synergy with all of the teammates in their lives, from colleagues to spouses and family.

The 8 Essential Elements of Human Synergy: Total commitment, Empathy and Awareness, Adversity, Management, Mutual Respect, ‘We’ Thinking, Ownership of the Project, Relinquishment of Ego, Kinetic Leadership.

Lead Like Gumby: Flexible Leadership That Gets Results
According to research from the Harvard Business Review, a company's profitability increases by up to 1/3 when managers create a more positive corporate climate through Flexible Leadership. In Robyn's Lead like Gumby: Flexible Leadership that Gets Results keynote, she combines well-respected academic research with amazing Adventure Racing and firefighting footage that illustrates great (and not so great) leaders in action in the most extreme challenges on earth. The result is an in depth and powerful look into six distinct leadership styles that, when utilized interchangeably and judiciously, are proven to have a positive effect on the corporate climate--the simplest way to increase the bottom-line. Your leaders will emerge with a deep understanding of the most effective way to engage and motivate their team.

Extreme Performance: Why Winners Win
What are the 5 most common attributes of people who make a lifelong habit of winning? In her Extreme Performance: Why Winners Win keynote, World Champion Eco-Challenge Racer and Firefighter Robyn Benincasa uses the model of Adventure Racing to highlight the mindset and common attributes of world-class athletes, teams and leaders in their quest for victory - and provides some real world guidelines and principles for reaching the top of the podium in any endeavor.

Extreme Change: Adapt, Overcome and Win As One
Change is the only thing that stays the same. It is our response to that change that dictates our success. How do the world's most consistently high performing teams ALWAYS find a way to get to the finish line or achieve their goals against all odds? Are they lucky, blessed, immune to setbacks?

Nope. The best of the best experience times of great turbulence and upheaval just like everyone else.

It’s their attitude and mindset that makes or breaks the team. Is your team ruled by the hope of success or the fear of failure? Winning and 'not losing' are two completely different mind sets that lead to vastly different outcomes. In Robyn's Extreme Change keynote, she shares incredible stories of triumph through adversity and outlines the simple and concrete methods that world class teams utilize to shatter the norm, see challenges versus roadblocks and embrace setbacks as a chance to learn and excel.