Yvonne Bornstein
Resilience Speaker, Survivor & Inspirational Speaker
A Melbourne businesswoman and survivor of a harrowing international kidnapping ordeal. With courage and compassion, Yvonne Bornstein shares her powerful story of resilience, recovery and strength, inspiring audiences to overcome adversity and rediscover perspective, purpose and the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit.
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Yvonne Bornstein is a Melbourne businesswoman, wife and mother whose story rivals elements of the novel Gorky Park.
Yvonne survived the harrowing experience of being kidnapped, held hostage, tortured, raped and rescued to now, many years later, being able to inspire and motivate others, particularly those who have suffered a trauma of any kind.
In 1992, Yvonne and her husband Daniel Weinstock went to Russia on a business trip. Because of a failed Moscow business deal, they were kidnapped at the airport by Chechen terrorists who were originally thought to be the Russian mob. Over a period of 11 days they were held captive, tortured and a demand for $1.6 million ransom was made to relatives in the US.
Yvonne and Daniel were finally rescued in a dramatic rescue by agents of the newly formed Russian Agency for Federal Security, one of the successors of the KGB. The rescue was the result of the first ever-open collaboration between the FBI and the former KGB. It was later discovered that the kidnappers had links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
Today Yvonne shares her incredible life-changing and life-empowering story with individuals, businesses and corporations around the world, inspiring audiences with her courage, strength and determination.
