Laura Ling

Laura Ling is an award-winning journalist whose harrowing 140-day detention in North Korea brought her face to face with fear, isolation, and the real possibility that she might never come home. Her survival and eventual release after former President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to secure her freedom became one of the most dramatic international stories of 2009.

140 Days in North Korea

In 2009, Ling and her colleague were detained by North Korean soldiers while reporting along the Chinese-North Korean border. She was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in what became a terrifying ordeal that tested every ounce of her strength, faith, and will to survive. The world watched as diplomatic efforts intensified, and in August 2009, former President Clinton personally traveled to North Korea to negotiate her release. The experience transformed her understanding of resilience, hope, and the power of human connection.

Strength in the Darkest Moments

Ling’s presentations are deeply personal and profoundly moving, reminding audiences that strength is not the absence of fear but the decision to keep going despite it. Her keynotes deliver powerful presentations on resilience and perseverance through the most extreme circumstances, finding hope and strength when everything has been taken away, the power of human connection and support in times of crisis, and the courage to continue pursuing meaningful work after life-changing adversity.

What does Laura Ling speak about?

Laura Ling is an acclaimed journalist known for in-depth reporting on human trafficking, energy poverty, and the challenges faced by military families, who survived 140 days of captivity by North Korean soldiers while reporting on the trafficking of North Korean women in 2009. She speaks on resilience, courage under extreme pressure, and the power of storytelling, drawing on decades of investigative journalism and her own harrowing captivity and release.

What is Laura Ling’s background?

Laura Ling is known for: Emmy Award and national Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist, co-author of Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home, named a Glamour Woman of the Year (2009).

Who books Laura Ling to speak?

Meeting planners book Laura Ling for resilience and leadership conferences that want a story with genuine, documented life-and-death stakes — 140 days held captive by North Korea — rather than a metaphorical account of overcoming adversity.

Journey of Hope

As a journalist, Laura Ling has spent a large part of her career focusing on human rights issues and struggles for freedom.  Ling talks about these experiences in addition to her own personal loss of liberty being held prisoner in one of the world’s most secretive, repressive nations and sentenced to twelve years hard labor for doing her work as a journalist.

Ling recounts her time in captivity, from moments when she feared she might never see her family again, to glimmers of humanity and compassion directed towards her by her captors, to the ways in which she fought to win back her freedom.  She talks about what sustained her throughout that terrifying period of isolation and how she was able to maintain hope.