Did you know that the woman who summited Everest on May 13, 2022, completing one of the world’s most gruelling mountaineering challenges, started her company as a single mother in a basement apartment, with no traditional business plan, no outside capital, and no safety net? She is 5 feet tall, she was born in her grandparents’ kitchen in a small village in Portugal, and she is terrified of heights. Ema Dantas is that woman. And the story of how she built Language Marketplace from zero to over $3.5M in annual revenue, debt-free, with a team of 24 and more than 1,500 freelancers before successfully exiting in 2022, is not a story about strategy. It is a story about what happens when you refuse to listen to the noise, anchor your belief in something bigger than yourself, and treat every obstacle as a summit to be climbed, one intentional step at a time. In this powerful, candid keynote, Ema draws on her nearly five-year journey to complete both the Messner and Bass versions of the 7-Summit Challenge, the only Portuguese person and one of approximately 130 Canadians ever to do so, to illuminate the mental frameworks that carried her through two decades of entrepreneurship, a successful business sale, and a very public battle for her own mental health. Attendees will leave with a visceral understanding of what peak performance actually looks like from the inside: not the highlight reel, but the altitude sickness, the summit fever, the moments of doubt at base camp and the discipline to ascend anyway. Ema’s session is for every woman who has ever been told her mountain is too big, her team too small, or her timing too late.

Did you know that one of Canada’s top female entrepreneurs was born in her grandparents’ kitchen in a tiny village in Portugal, is 5 feet tall, deathly afraid of heights — and has stood on top of the world? Ema Dantas is a keynote speaker, author, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate whose life defies every convention about what is possible. In 2000, as a single mother to two daughters, Ema founded Language Marketplace from her basement apartment with no business plan and no outside funding. By 2012 she was recognized as one of Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneurs; by 2013 Language Marketplace had made the Profit 500 list of Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies. When she sold the company in 2022 it was generating over $3.5M in annual revenue, debt-free, with a staff of 24 and more than 1,500 freelancers under contract. In parallel, Ema spent four and a half years completing the 7-Summit Challenge in both the Messner and Bass versions, summiting Everest on May 13, 2022, the same year she exited her business. She is the first Portuguese person and one of approximately 130 Canadians to have accomplished both versions of the challenge. Her memoir, Mental Mountains, is not a mountaineering book. It is an unflinching account of mental health, faith, and the refusal to let fear write the ending.