Celebrity Speakers - Book inspirational and motivational speakers & entertainers for corporate, association & social events

Mary Quin is perhaps best known as one of a group of 16 tourists taken hostage in Yemen by local militants. Mary’s dramatic escape during a gun battle between the militants and the Yemen army, in which four tourists were killed and two wounded, made headline news around the world. A dual citizen of New Zealand and USA, Mary now lives between the two countries as she sets up her own business, a company which will retail natural and organic products for bed, bath and home spa.

Formerly Senior Vice President of Xerox Corporation, Mary has a strong background in research and development. At Raychem Corporation in California, she invented and patented new alloys used in electronic, medical and aerospace applications. Later, as a Product Manager for a start-up company, Beta Phase Inc., Quin developed a new class of high performance electronic connectors before leaving to pursue an MBA at the Harvard Business School.

On graduating from Harvard, Quin held a variety of roles with the Eastman Kodak Company and Avid Technology Inc., a leader in digital video editing systems. At Avid, Quin completed a successful expansion of the company’s manufacturing capacity and reduced the cost structure of its assembly and shipping operations.

In 1996 she launched the 100 Heroines Project to celebrate the first women's rights conference in the US 150 years earlier. Two years later, in 1998, she was a member of the US State Department’s delegation to the Vital Voices Conference on economic development in Northern Ireland.

Now Mary is focusing on her own venture, a company which will retail natural and organic products for bed, bath and home spa.

Mary well qualified as an inspirational speaker who can cover a range of business and social issues. She draws on her diverse life experiences in Corporate America, international activism, and hostage survival, to provide compelling insights on issues of concern in business today.