Ideas that change what we see
I speak about the questions I’ve spent much of my career researching and working with: leadership, accountability, antifragility and what it takes to keep doing good work when the world around us changes.
My work takes me into conferences, leadership retreats and organisations where people are navigating something that matters.
Sometimes the brief is to shift thinking.
Sometimes it is to give people language for something they’ve been experiencing but haven’t quite been able to name.
And sometimes it is to help a room full of people have a conversation they need to have.
At its best, speaking is a form of public sense-making: helping a room see, name and think differently about something they are experiencing together.
Whatever the setting, I want people to leave seeing something differently – with ideas they can actually use.
Ideas that change what we see
I speak about what it takes to keep doing good work when the world around us changes.
How I work
I’m a researcher, but I don’t give lectures.
I take evidence and ideas seriously. I also know they only become useful when people can see themselves in them.
So I tell stories. I ask questions. I make complicated things easier to see. I give people language and frameworks they can use long after I’ve left the room.
And I pay attention to the room I’m actually in.
Because the same keynote delivered regardless of who is listening has never made much sense to me.
What I speak about
The questions change with the context, but my work tends to sit in three connected areas.
Accountability
How do we create accountability that people genuinely own?
I’ve spent years researching, writing and working with organisations on why accountability breaks down — and what becomes possible when we stop treating it as something we do to people.
This work explores how expectations, ownership, agency and the systems around us shape whether good intentions become action.
Leading through complexity
What if getting through complexity isn’t enough?
My work on antifragility explores how leaders, teams and organisations can become better because of challenge, change and uncertainty.
It asks something more useful than “How do we bounce back?”
What can we learn, change or build because this happened?
Leading, exceptionally
Leadership rarely happens under ideal conditions.
It happens inside systems – with competing demands, imperfect information, other humans and all the messiness that brings.
I explore what helps leaders understand the ecosystem they are operating in, make better choices within it and create the conditions for other people to do good work too.
Where I speak
Keynotes and conference sessions
For organisations and events looking to shift how people think about leadership, accountability, performance and navigating disruption.
Leadership retreats and offsites
More conversational and participative work designed around what a leadership group needs to think about together.
Organisational events
Sessions that create shared language and thinking around a particular challenge, change or priority.
The format follows the purpose.
Working together
Every engagement starts with understanding what you want to be different because we gathered people in a room.
Who are they?
What are they dealing with?
What do they need to think about, talk about or do differently afterwards?
That conversation shapes what I bring into the room.
If you’re planning a conference, leadership retreat or organisational event and think I might be useful, I’d love to talk.