Radhi Spear, is the 2024-2025 Toastmasters International President. She is also a world traveler and exercise enthusiast, has served in numerous Toastmasters leadership roles, raised two daughters, and is a software engineer at AT&T. But before all these life experiences, she says she was a very shy, quiet child.

The youngest of five sisters, Spear was born in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, but spent her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria. In elementary school, she would whisper her responses and tremble when told to speak up. But, as she put it, she survived.

Her family moved back to India when Spear reached high school, and while she looked like the other students, she had a Nigerian accent. “The minute I opened my mouth … they all started laughing,” she says. “I tried to get an Indian accent overnight. I wanted to blend in. I wanted to be like them.”

This desire to blend in continued for years. Spear moved to the United States to pursue her master’s degree in electrical engineering and was the only woman in her classes. She’d try to sit in the back, but eventually the professor would notice her and ask her to answer a question or solve a problem.

“I did not have Toastmasters to give me the confidence. I survived. I managed. I graduated.”

During a milestone birthday celebration for her father, Spear and her sisters gave toasts. Each sister spoke, from eldest to youngest, with Spear going last. As Spear recalls, “It was one sentence. It was terrible.”

One of her sisters was a Toastmaster in India and encouraged Spear to join a club, and the idea stuck in her head. A few years later when a club formed at her office—AT&T Middletown Toastmasters—she joined as a charter member, and never looked back.