Meet Radhi Spear, DTM

Radhi Spear, DTM, 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. 

Sharing the Secret

Now, Spear is a proud member of three clubs, including the AT&T club, L.A.C.E. Toastmasters, and Virtual Parliamentarians, and feels the organization is the best kept secret that shouldn’t be a secret. “I wish I had found it sooner,” she says. “I want more people to benefit from this program. It works. Think about it. We are in 150 countries, all different cultures, all different backgrounds, all different perspectives, but we’re all human beings. We want this feeling of community. We want this support. ... It’s a tried-and-tested method, so I’m a true believer.”

It’s this belief in the program that pushes Spear to spread the word about Toastmasters and inspired her primary goal as she heads into her year as International President: membership growth. She partially jokes, “I want us to double in size and add all these other countries we’re missing.” One initiative for doing that is encouraging members to participate in the Plus One Pledge—a pledge drive asking each member to bring a guest to the club meeting by the end of December. “It’s such a perfect way to honor our founder,” she says.

Spear is beginning her service to the organization during a momentous milestone—this October, Toastmasters International is celebrating 100 years of teaching leadership and communication skills. When asked how she has been celebrating this memorable time in history, Spear pointed at her virtual background designed by the Graphics Team at World Headquarters to showcase the Toastmasters brand and 100-year logo. “Show pride!” she says. “I keep telling all my club members to show the background. We want people to know that we’ve been here for 100 years.”

A Push to the Starting Block

Growth takes work, but Spear is no stranger to challenging herself or those around her. Where did that desire for growth begin in a child who once couldn’t speak up to answer a question in class? Spear says, “My mother was a huge influence, and she was always insistent on being self-sufficient and independent.” She may have been shy, but Spear quickly learned to embrace challenges thanks to her mother.

When she was 15 years old, and her family was living in India, Spear had been practicing her swimming twice a day, every day, in a newly opened Olympic-size swimming pool near her home. There was a race set to take place, and Spear planned to compete, but began to get nervous and skipped some of her practice laps.

When the day came, she went to the pool and asked the other racers what their best times were. She soon realized they were all much faster than her, so she decided not to bother. Spear and a friend went to a local bakery instead, and when she returned home, her mother asked how it went. Upon finding out her daughter didn’t try, she said, “You just gave up? This is your idea of sportsmanship? This is not what I taught you. You were practicing all this while and you just gave up without even attempting?”

Spear took the lecture to heart and raced back to the pool with just enough time to spare to jump onto the starting block for the 400-meter freestyle final. With the taste of her bakery sweets in her mouth and her mother’s words in her ears, young Spear took third place. And that felt like such a victory.

“It’s a sense of accomplishment, and you only feel that sense of accomplishment when you do something difficult. Anybody can do something easy,” Spear says of the lesson learned. “Why do we appreciate someone who ran a marathon? It’s because it’s hard, not because it’s easy. So when I look back, my mom taught me a good lesson. She was there pushing me, so that’s why I went back [to the pool].”

From the moment she joined Toastmasters, Spear had fellow club members and mentors encouraging her, and pushing her to speak, take roles, and grow. She was asked to be Area Director and she honestly shared that she only agreed because she wanted to earn her Distinguished Toastmaster designation. But she says, “You can make one small decision and your whole life could change and you don’t even realize.”

Serving as Area Director opened her eyes to the Toastmasters world beyond her club and she began advancing in leadership roles from there. Spear was encouraged to run for what was Division Governor at the time. She was honored to be nominated and showed up to the conference where members would vote for the new leaders. Running unopposed, she didn’t worry about preparing a speech, but then someone decided to run from the floor.

“I should have been prepared and I could have given in, but luckily I didn’t,” Spear says. She scrambled to figure out how to best pitch herself, and ultimately, won the election. From that day forward, there was an opposing candidate for every position she ran for until she reached the election for First Vice President, but she was always prepared and came out on top. “I think that’s a good thing looking back because it makes you a better candidate. Maybe the immigrant in me wants to show I can succeed.”

Even as she was advancing in Toastmasters leadership, it never crossed Spear’s mind that she would serve on the Board of Directors or become International President. She received a Presidential Citation from Jana Barnhill, DTM, AS, 2008-2009 International President; spoke about success in District leadership at an International Convention; and was part of the very first International Leadership Committee, a group responsible for nominating International Officer and Director candidates from the pool of applicants. As Spear puts it, “My Toastmasters journey was going great!”

But with a flourishing career and two daughters, juggling her responsibilities became difficult, and Spear opted to step back from Toastmasters to help her daughters in school.

Diving Back In

While Spear wasn’t active in Toastmasters for a few years, she decided to attend the 2014 International Convention with her sister in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Toastmasters’ first convention outside of North America). There she ran into Deepak Menon, DTM, 2019-2020 International President, who encouraged her to get involved again and run for Region Advisor. At this point, her daughters were in college and the timing with work felt right.

“I have to say, every time I go on a District visit, I think what really inspired me the most was women would come up to me and say, ‘Wow, you made it this far,’ and I think it’s important for people to see that representation,” Spear says of returning to Toastmasters leadership. “It made me feel good that they all came up and spoke to me.”

Spear is now the ninth woman to serve as Toastmasters International President, and she’s thrilled to see more women becoming District leaders. “I don’t mean to generalize, but I feel women can underestimate themselves sometimes, and I would like them to believe in themselves,” she explains. Just as her mother pushed her and her sisters to believe that they could accomplish anything, Spear wants that for her fellow Toastmasters.

“Toastmasters gives you those tools—the confidence to try things,” she says. “You may have the knowledge, you may have the ability, but you need that self-confidence, and that’s what Toastmasters gave me.”

Even when Spear ran for Second Vice President and lost the race her first time, she leaned on her Toastmasters confidence to try again. Her husband also played a role in getting her back on the starting block, just as her mother did when she was a teenager.

Spear says she ran a second time, “because there’s no shame in losing.” She continues, “I was lucky I had him the second time. I had my mom, but all of us have our clubs, if not our family, to push us.”

The Gift of Diverse Viewpoints

From improving her self-confidence to inspiring others, to raising her daughters and advancing her career, Spear’s Toastmasters skills have been instrumental in allowing her to speak up. And the diverse environment of the organization is another aspect that has helped her grow.

“In Toastmasters we have people from around the world, and you can learn so much about all different types,” Spear says. “I think that’s one of the things that makes it so much fun. The diversity of the people, the different perspectives, the different backgrounds—it widens your mind and it’s really wonderful.”

Her team at AT&T is also diverse. She has coworkers from Nigeria, Egypt, Mongolia, Germany, and more, and she finds it beneficial when coming up with new ideas and perspectives. Thanks to Toastmasters, she’s also comfortable speaking up in meetings or when she’s in charge of a project.

“I can give feedback to others, and I’m willing to listen to feedback also because it’s so multicultural, I don’t presume to know all the answers, but I know that when you have a diverse group of people, you get more robust solutions and I think that’s a good thing,” Spear explains.

She maintains that mentality with the diversity of Toastmasters and the organization’s Board of Directors. “We think more broadly before we come up with a decision,” Spear says. “We have a very bright future ahead of us as we go forward.”

The Year Ahead

In part thanks to her international moves as a child, Spear has an immense love for travel. She hopes to do some traveling for Toastmasters in the coming year to meet and assist members, and for fun, she’d like to visit New Zealand next.

When she’s not at work or Toastmasters, planning her next trip, or spending time with her new grandson, she enjoys going to the gym and reading books on fitness and wellness. She’s still swimming, though not competing like she did as a teen. Her most recent hobby is bicycling, and she and her husband can often be found on some of the trails near their New Jersey home. During her term as International President, Toastmasters will be her focus with her eye trained on growth for the organization and its members.

“I just want members to know they’re fortunate they found Toastmasters, because there are many people out there who are not lucky enough to have found it,” she says. “In this 100th year, we should be proud. Let people know there’s Toastmasters and in Dr. Smedley’s memory, get someone to attend a meeting and see for themselves.”

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