The Uplift Center

I help leaders and entrepreneurs build more effective, engaged and sustainable communities through facilitation coaching, group trainings and live experience production/advisement, both virtually and in person. 

Past clients include: 
Barclays, Pinterest, YouTube, Ebay, Virgin, Beacon Digital Marketing, Mastercard, Columbia University, New York University, Deloitte, EY, Boston Consulting Group and more.

Belonging & Live Experience Consultant

Bellweather Agency, Beacon Digital Marketing and more

As a freelance marketing consultant, I leverage my unique blend of entrepreneurial expertise, performance artistry, and technical marketing skills to craft innovative strategies that drive engagement, brand visibility, and client growth. My work spans content creation, copywriting, voice-over production, website design, and virtual event coordination, ensuring impactful campaigns tailored to client’s needs.

Key Highlights:

- Content Creation & Copywriting: Delivered SEO-optimized blogs, social media content, and website copy, aligning with brand goals to boost traffic and conversions.
- Virtual Event Production: Produced and managed engaging live and virtual experiences, incorporating interactive elements to captivate diverse audiences and amplify brand storytelling.
- Voice Over & Multimedia Projects: Provided professional voice-over recordings for promo videos, podcasts, and training modules, adding a personal touch to enhance client messaging.
- Website Design: Designed and optimized user-friendly websites that reflect brand identity and drive engagement.
- Social Media Strategy: Managed social media platforms, creating targeted campaigns that boosted audience engagement and follower growth.
- Event Marketing: Coordinated live and virtual events, including brand activations and community-building initiatives, to amplify client visibility.
- Analytics & Reporting: Provided detailed performance reports to track campaign success and optimize future strategies.
- Strategic Partnerships: Secured collaborations with high-profile clients and brands such as Virgin, Pinterest, and Mastercard, helping clients extend their reach and establish credibility.

Drawing from my entrepreneurial experience as the founder of The Uplift Center and my background as a performance artist, I bring a unique storytelling perspective to my marketing work. This creative edge allows me to connect with audiences on a deeper level while maintaining a strategic focus on measurable results.

Freelance Marketing Consultant

The Drunk Yoga® Method

So...what's "drunk" about Drunk Yoga®?

Only the way in which we “intoxicate” the convention of yoga by making it social for community-building. We believe that #communitycare is the best form of #selfcare, and we do this by infusing uplifting games and clever icebreakers into our beginner-friendly classes for both virtual and in-person gatherings.

Since 2017, event planners across the globe have turned to Eli and her team to curate premiere wellness experiences seamlessly designed to foster playful camaraderie within their gatherings. Whether for a corporate conference, offsite or team-building activity, when you book with Drunk Yoga® (now The Uplift Experience), you hire more than “just” a yoga instructor; you co-create an hour of pure joy via the power of radical belonging.

While Eli Walker earned international acclaim for creating the first ever yoga company to offer classes with beverage in-hand—(often wine, sometimes coffee, and always fun)—Drunk Yoga® is now the premiere training program for multi-preneurial yoga teachers offering certification courses in the original Drunk Yoga® Method, as well as professional development support in launching their own unique immersive wellness experiences.

Whether you're a yoga teacher ready to uplift your students in a more authentic way, or a company interested in working with us to curate a memorable, interactive yoga party, we invite you to let your hair down, fill your cup(s) and enjoy this potent union of yoga and social ritual.

Founder/Author of the Drunk Yoga® Method

Hi there! I'm a seasoned professional speaker with a knack for helping leaders and facilitators "get over themselves" so they can better engage their communities. With a BFA in Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts as well as a wellness expert with experience teaching yoga and meditation across the globe since 2014, I'm a natural performer with a profound message: interactive play deepens belonging within gatherings. (Also? I'm super funny.)

Best-Selling Keynotes:

1) The Power of Play
Playful, interactive storytelling opens the door to empathy; empathy holds the key to communal, sustainable joy.

2) The Art of Getting Over Yourself
Everything you see is true, but so is everything you don't see. Learn 3 simple techniques to “rewrite your personal narratives” and better connect with your people.

3) The Structure of Belonging
Increase retention by cultivating a shared sense of belonging; Learn how to ask more impactful questions that shape empowering conversations in your gatherings.

Professional Speaker

- Author of "Drunk Yoga®: 50 Wine & Yoga Poses to Lift Your Spirit(s)," published by Skyhorse Publishing
- Contributing writer for Forbes, Ellevate and GloWell Magazine
- Monologuist and Solo-Performance Artist: Wrote and starred in "STEPS" at Wings Theater in NYC under the Emmy Award-winning direction of Blake Bradford in 2010, "COUNTING," produced by NYU's Experimental Theater Wing in 2012, and "The Quarter Life Crisis Monologues" produced by the PIT in NYC in 2017, directed by Jonathan Libman.

Author

Freelance Voice-Over Talent

I am a professional voice artist for NBC with my own dedicated recording studio. I record on a Blue Microphone and edit using Logic Pro X. 

My voice has been heard in commercials for Highlights for Kids Magazine, NFL promos, Bic Markers, as well as many audiobooks and podcasts. 

My voice is perfect for commercial, narration or presentation projects that require a professional, compassionate/warm, soothing, sarcastic, upbeat, motherly, or young/hip sounding female voice. Think "professional physician" meets "young mom with a great sense of humor." I can also do sexy/seductive voices, as well as cartoon characters and singing!

What people are saying:

"Eli is awesome. Incredibly talented and a pleasure to work with!"
-Osato Dixon, Senior Producer at NBC

"Such a pro. I work with Eli every chance I get."
-Jack Maley, Founder/Director M3

"A truly gifted voice artist. Eli is my go-to female voice for all my projects."
-Tom Gambale, Media Racket Sound

"Not only is Eli naturally gifted, but she's also hard-working, observant, and resilient. Powerful energy...magnetic."
-Chris Modoono, Writer/Director, Tribeca Film Festival's "Tenured" and "Teacher of the Year,"/Producer, "Drinking Buddies"

"Excellent performer. Wonderful person. Awesome to work with."
-Tony Nation, President of Actors Connection

Voice Over Artist

Self Employed

I have been teaching yoga and mindfulness classes, leading international retreats and curating wellness workshops and experiences for numerous companies and clients since 2014, including Equinox, Reflections Yoga Studio, Katonah Yoga, David Barton Gym and various corporations such as ITOCHU, JP Morgan and Barclay's. 

- 500 Hrs. + Certified in Advanced Vinyasa Yoga from Atmananda Yoga Studio, NYC 2014
- 50 Hrs. + Certified in Katonah Yoga, NYC 2017
- Complete 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat in Dharamshala, India 2015
- Advanced Certified in Reiki in Rishikesh, India 2015

Yoga Teacher

Bridge Funding Global

Leveraging my expertise in creating live, immersive experiences to foster sustainable horizontal connection within community gatherings, I support The Bridge's efforts in sponsorship and business development, member relations, program coordination and marketing.

Director of Community Engagement

Stonestreet Studios Inc.

- Point-of-contact for students, professors, NYU and prospective clients
- Coordinated and managed class scheduling + special programming
- Assistant directing and produced multiple independent film projects
- Managed 20+ interns and staff 
- Coordinated brand sponsors and digital marketing campaigns

Managing Director & PR Coordinator

Earth Celebrations

- Coordinated/assistant-directed Earth Celebrations' "Hudson River Pageant," an annual ecological performance art event to raise awareness to the impact of climate change on local wildlife
- Managed 100+ sponsors, artists, interns and volunteers to produce a large-scale parade, including the creation of handmade costumes
- Produced large-scale fundraiser event in NYC to raise sufficient donations for the pageant
- Wrote and sent press releases as well as coordinated media relations with major NYC publications for the day of the event

Program Coordinator

Eli Walker is a sought-after speaker, belonging consultant and leadership trainer specializing in helping facilitators enhance audience engagement and retention through live experiences by leveraging the art of play. Eli has always loved helping people from different backgrounds get on the same page. Bonus points if she can achieve this while inspiring them to live joyfully, empower them with new perspectives, and make them laugh at the same time.

As the founder and author of the internationally-acclaimed wellness brand Drunk Yoga® (now The Uplift Experience), Eli pioneered the wellness entertainment movement to bridge the gap between #selfcare and #communitycare her social yoga events. Now, she helps forward-thinking leaders and teams do the same with her signature talk, The Art of Getting Over Yourself and P.L.A.Y. Method™ workshops: break the rules to get over themselves, engage community and spark radical belonging by facilitating more playful and engaging gatherings. When you work with Eli, you can expect to play, move, laugh, and walk away feeling empowered with tools to create a more connected world. 

A belonging expert and social wellness entrepreneur for over 10 years with a BFA in Theater from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Eli has used immersive storytelling and mindfulness practices to support tens of thousands of individuals and hundreds of institutions across the globe--including NYU & Columbia University, as well as Barclay's, Ebay, Intel, Google, Pinterest and Mastercard--in creating work-life balance, purposeful productivity and stronger, more engaged communities. 

Check out www.eliwalkerstories.com to learn more and connect.

On December 12th and 13th, I'm performing my new one-woman show Kill the Buddha at Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY.

The title comes from an ancient Zen teaching: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

Meaning: Stop looking for enlightenment outside yourself. Stop worshipping the guru. Keep going.

For years, I searched for belonging everywhere but within myself:

- The right yoga teacher who'd give me the answers
- The right community with the perfect rules
- The right practice that would finally make me "enlightened"

I thought if I just found the RIGHT external thing—the right teacher, method, movement—I'd finally feel like I belonged.

But, every time I found my "Buddha"—my guru, my system, my salvation—it eventually became a prison, because (and I think many of you can relate to this) the moment you outsource your belonging to someone else's dogma, you lose yourself.

This show is about that moment. The moment you realize: the enlightenment you're seeking/the belonging you're craving…it's not “out there.” It's in you. And to find it, you have to transcend every external authority telling you who you “should” be.

Come to see my show? :) 

Info & tickets: https://bit.ly/49YNoUi

Eli Walker

Belonging Keynote Speaker | Emcee | Forbes Contributor | Founder/Author: Drunk Yoga® & The Uplift Center, curating immersive social wellness experiences to help you get over yourself, engage community & spark belonging.

More #BelongingHacks to start your week:

- If your company is lacking a culture of belonging, it's because your culture is lacking in P.L.A.Y.
Why? Because play requires opt-in. It needs structure everyone can get behind, plus spontaneity, excitement, and healthy competition. This process ignites engagement, belonging’s best friend.

- A community is only as effective as the level to which participants feel they belong AND feel engaged. Community is the vehicle through which belonging is felt.

- Your success as an individual isn't at odds with community success—they fuel each other.

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