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Samantha Renke is a broadcaster, writer, speaker and disability rights campaigner who was named number 3 on The Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 List in 2020.
Her on-screen credits include Unfiltered Woman (ITV), This Morning (ITV), Morning Live (BBC One), Sunday Morning Live (BBC One), Rip Off Britain (BBC One), Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (BBC Two), Loose Women (ITV), Good Morning Britain (ITV) and Jeremy Vine on 5 (Channel 5). She has also been interviewed on ITV News, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, Sky News and Front Row (BBC Radio 4).
Samantha Renke’s debut book, You Are The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, was published by Penguin under Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place imprint. She is also a columnist for the Metro and Enable magazine and has written for publications including The Huffington Post, Pos’Ability, Lifestyle and Glamour.
Her work in advertising includes starring in the award-winning Maltesers campaign based on real-life experiences of Disabled people, and she has collaborated with major brands such as Amazon Prime Video, SHARK, Eurostar and WUKA.
A regular voice in podcasting, Samantha has co-hosted The Motability Lifestyle Pod and LifeDownLow’ed, and has appeared as a guest on Happy Place and BBC Access All.
As an experienced and in-demand speaker, Samantha has delivered talks for organisations such as the National Education Union, Paramount, the Houses of Parliament, British Red Cross, Retail Week, British Retail Consortium (RPC and BRC), ASOS, Omnicom, Save The Children, Pinterest and Jones Day. She was also Disability Lead for Paramount (formerly Viacom), working closely with UNLRN and The Diversity Trust.
Beyond her professional career, Samantha is a trustee of The Brittle Bone Society and an ambassador for Scope, Ferne Animal Sanctuary and Enhance The UK’s Undressing Disability campaign. She is also a patron of Head2Head, a multi-sensory theatre company.
Samantha’s impact has been widely recognised: she was nominated as Campaigner of the Year at the 2019 European Diversity Awards, Celebrity of the Year at the 2020 National Diversity Awards, and received the Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of Lancaster for graduates who have made a substantial contribution to their field and built a national or international reputation.
Disabled people don’t want handouts, token gestures or empty words of inspiration. We want tangible change, we want a place at the table and we want agency so here’s how you make space for us.
Developing inclusive cultures is of great importance to organisations today, but often employers don’t feel confident in knowing where to start when it comes to disability inclusion. In this session, Samantha explores holistic approaches to disability inclusion and what it truly means to demonstrate allyship.
Samantha Renke is a broadcaster, actor, campaigner and educator; she wears many hats and has many labels including inspirational and burden.
In this session Samantha takes an honest and open look into how disability is viewed in 2025. She will unpack the harmful stereotypes which Disabled people face and how our own unconscious bias impacts the disability community and adds to further marginalisation of the largest minority group. She will touch on the medical model and social models of disability from Samantha’s own lived experience whilst addressing ableism and how you can become an ally of the disability community, and understand why disability isn’t a dirty word.
I have worked with Samantha for a few years. Samantha has delivered disability workshops for ViacomsCBS which she broke down the importance of disability inclusion. Samantha is a pleasure to work with!
Samantha Renke is an engaging, authentic and inspiring speaker. She is able to relate to a wide range of people while sharing her journey and experiences, as well as to make us understand the essence of inclusion – at our core, we are all the same.
