Sarah Moshman
Sexual harassment prevention has hardened into compliance training that employees sit through and forget. Workforce campaigns for inclusion now compete with fatigue and political backlash, and most internal voices have lost the credibility to move the room. Leaders need outside material that survives a cynical audience and still changes how colleagues behave the next day.
Sarah Moshman is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker who gives organisations narrative content on workplace harassment, women’s leadership and courage that lands with audiences who have stopped listening to compliance decks.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Sarah Moshman
- Her documentary Nevertheless is in active use as a sexual harassment prevention tool by employers and educators through distributor Indieflix, giving HR and DEI leads a piece of external content that has survived independent review.
- The Empowerment Project has been screened more than 700 times for corporate and education audiences and has been picked up as programming by Nordstrom, American Girl, Microsoft and Charles Schwab, which is a working track record for women’s leadership events rather than a speculative pitch.
- She brings a regional Emmy in the Human Interest category and a NASA CineSpace first-place win for UNBOUND, which gives her credibility as a maker, not only as a speaker telling stories about her own life.
- She has been booked into difficult rooms, including a US Air Force women’s symposium at Hill Air Force Base and the opening keynote at the PEI Women Conference, where the audience is not the converted.
- Her commercial film work for SPANX, Samsung, AT&T and Mattel means she understands the brief from a marketing buyer’s side and can speak credibly to internal communications and brand teams about storytelling that performs.
Biography highlights
- Emmy Award winner, NATAS Chicago/Midwest Chapter, 2013, for Growing up Strong: Girls on the Run.
- Director of three feature documentaries: The Empowerment Project (2014), Losing Sight of Shore (Netflix, 2017) and Nevertheless (2020).
- UNBOUND won First Place at NASA’s CineSpace Global Short Film Competition.
- Author of Empowered Filmmaking: How To Make a Documentary On Your Own Terms (2020).
- Branded content work for SPANX, Samsung, AT&T and Mattel.
- Featured on CNN, Good Morning America, Marie Claire, Upworthy and PBS; TEDx speaker; adjunct professor in documentary film.
Biography
Compliance-led harassment training is the work environment most employees have come to mistrust. The films Sarah Moshman has made for the same audience take the opposite route. Nevertheless, her 2020 feature documentary, follows seven survivors across industries from a tech CEO to a 911 dispatcher, and is now distributed by Indieflix as part of structured prevention education in workplaces and schools.
That outsider craft is what organisations are actually booking. The Empowerment Project, her 2014 feature on women in leadership across the US, has been screened more than 700 times for audiences from corporates to schools, and has carried sponsorship from Nordstrom, American Girl, Microsoft and Charles Schwab. Losing Sight of Shore (Netflix, 2017) follows four women rowing more than 8,000 miles across the Pacific and gives her a second register: endurance and team performance under conditions where every easy out has been removed.
The credentials behind the work are specific. A regional Emmy in 2013 for Growing up Strong: Girls on the Run. First place at NASA’s CineSpace competition for the short UNBOUND. A book, Empowered Filmmaking, that documents how the films were funded, made and licensed to Netflix. Branded content commissions from SPANX, Samsung, AT&T and Mattel that confirm she can produce inside a marketing brief, not only on her own terms.
In a room, she works from her own footage. The PEI Women Conference opened with her in 2019, the US Air Force hosted her at the Hill women’s symposium, and her TEDx delivery is on public record. The result is the rare speaker on these topics whose primary asset is film that an organisation can keep using long after the keynote ends.
Key speaking topics
- Workplace sexual harassment prevention
- Women’s leadership and the next generation pipeline
- Storytelling for brand and internal communications
- Inclusion and allyship after #MeToo
- Courage and risk-taking in early careers
- Documentary craft and the business of independent film
Ideal for
- CHROs, DEI leads and ER teams running harassment prevention or culture programmes
- Internal communications and employer brand leaders looking for narrative content
- Women’s leadership networks and ERG anchor events
- CMOs and brand teams interested in long-form storytelling as a commercial asset
Audience outcomes
- A documentary screening or curated clips package that gives employees a shared piece of content to discuss, rather than a slide-led training
- A clear account of how the Nevertheless survivors describe what allyship looked like in practice, including from peers and managers
- Specific examples of how women profiled in The Empowerment Project moved into senior roles, useful as case material for internal mentoring conversations
- A working method for using story to make uncomfortable workplace conversations possible without defensiveness
Talks
A keynote built from her journey out of network television production into independent documentary, drawing on The Empowerment Project and Losing Sight of Shore.
Key takeaways:
- The decision points where a safe career step would have killed both films
- What four women learned about team performance during a Pacific Ocean crossing of more than 8,000 miles
- How to act on conviction before the data is in
A screening-led keynote drawn from her 2020 documentary on workplace sexual harassment in the wake of #MeToo. Available as a full screening or clips-based keynote with discussion.
Key takeaways:
- How harassment plays out across industries, told by seven survivors on camera rather than by a trainer
- What allyship from colleagues and managers looks like in the survivors’ own descriptions
- Practical use of the film as part of a harassment prevention programme
A keynote on how to build a documentary from idea to distribution, drawn from her book of the same name.
Key takeaways:
- Fundraising, production and distribution for an independent project that has to pay for itself
- How a film moves from a festival circuit to a Netflix licensing deal
- Lessons for in-house brand and content teams making longer-form work