Keynotes and speaking
Talks that give a room something to do on Monday.
Most keynotes are enjoyed and then forgotten. These are built so your audience leaves with one pattern they can name, and one question they can put to their own team on Monday.
Speaking enquiry See the keynotes
ConferencesBoardsExecutive programmes
01 / The keynotes
Four keynotes. Open one for the full brief.
Each brief has everything you need to sell the session internally: the promise, the audience, the takeaways and the formats.
Every talk works as a live keynote, as a keynote plus workshop, as a panel or as a facilitated session. I facilitate as often as I speak, so if your programme needs a different shape, ask.
01 / Keynote
The Filter
Who edited the report on your desk, and what the edit cost you.
The promise
The audience leaves able to name the thing that quietly edits their information, and with three questions they can put to their own team on Monday morning.
Who it is for
Chief executives, boards, executive teams and senior leadership conferences. Works best where the audience carries real decision-making authority.
What the room leaves with
- Why honest reporting gets more expensive the higher it travels, and why that is structural rather than personal
- The three channels a leader can build that their own hierarchy does not control
- Three questions that surface what a team has agreed to stop raising
Formats
- Live keynote, 45–60 minutes, questions taken on stage
- Keynote plus workshop, half day, worked against your own decisions
- Closed board or executive session, 90 minutes, off the record
- Panel or moderated conversation, as panellist or as chair
02 / Keynote
Fix the System, Not the Pilot
What aviation learned by refusing to accept human error as an explanation.
The promise
The audience stops looking for who to blame and starts looking for what made the mistake likely. That single change is what makes the next incident less probable.
Who it is for
Operating businesses where failure is visible and expensive: energy, telecoms, mining, ports, logistics, construction, financial services and regulators.
What the room leaves with
- The difference between the immediate trigger and the conditions that were already in place, and what each one costs to fix
- Why a serious failure usually rests on 7 to 12 small factors rather than one big one
- What changes in a business the day blame stops being the first question
Formats
- Live keynote, 45–60 minutes
- Keynote plus workshop, half day, applied to one of your own incidents
- Board or risk committee session, 90 minutes
- Panel or moderated conversation, as panellist or as chair
03 / Keynote
The First Generation Leader
Leading where your own experience has not been before.
The promise
The audience stops treating a thin advisory network as a personal shortcoming and starts treating it as a structural gap they can close on purpose.
Who it is for
Founder-led and first-generation businesses, family groups in transition, emerging-market leadership programmes, and any audience where most people are the first in their family to run at this scale.
What the room leaves with
- Why an inherited network is an information advantage rather than a social one
- Where to find a second opinion that carries no cost to the person giving it
- How to tell the difference between advice and agreement
Formats
- Live keynote, 45–60 minutes
- Moderated conversation or fireside, 60 minutes
- Closed session for a founder or family board, 90 minutes
- Keynote plus workshop, half day
04 / Board session
Precisely Wrong
The question a board should settle before it approves the next AI system.
The promise
The board leaves with one written question and a standard of evidence to expect before that question is answered. It is a governance session, not a technology briefing.
Who it is for
Boards, risk and audit committees, and executive teams about to automate a decision that carries regulatory, safety or reputational consequence.
What the room leaves with
- Why a system trained on flattering data produces confident answers that are wrong in the same direction every time
- What happens when a leadership team's unreconciled disagreements get executed automatically, thousands of times a day
- The reconstruction question to ask after an automated decision fails, and why most governance frameworks cannot answer it
Formats
- Live keynote, 45–60 minutes
- Board or risk committee session, 90 minutes
- Facilitated working session, two hours, technology and risk in the room
- Panel or moderated conversation, as panellist or as chair
Have a date in mind? Tell me about the room and I will tell you which one fits.
Speaking enquiry Answered within two working days02 / What you get as the organiser
Everything you need to sell it internally.
A short call with you
Fifteen minutes to understand who is in the room, what they arrived believing and what the programme needs them to leave with.
Promotional pack
Session title, a 50-word abstract and a 150-word version, three takeaways, a speaker biography at two lengths, and a high-resolution photograph.
Two or three background conversations
With people from the organisation, so the examples come from your world rather than somebody else's case study.
A simple technical list
A lapel or headset microphone, a screen with a confidence monitor, and a clicker. Slides supplied 48 hours ahead. Panels and facilitated sessions need none of it.
A one-page follow-up
The three questions from the talk, written so your delegates can put them to their own teams. Yours to circulate.
03 / Four things I ask for
Small asks. They make the difference.
- Closed sessions are off the record, and the recording stops.
- The most senior person in the room stays in the room.
- A short conversation with two or three of your people beforehand.
- The talk keeps the part somebody expects me to soften.
If your programme needs a session that confirms what the audience already believes, there are speakers who do that well. I would rather say so at the enquiry than on the day.
04 / Enquire
Tell me about the room.
Who is in it, what they arrived believing, and what you need them to leave with. Dates, budgets and formats are easy after that.