Speaking
Your room leaves with something they can do on Monday.
Not inspired. Not told to be resilient. I talk about how work actually gets designed around real bodies and real attention, and what it costs a business when it isn't - and I leave people with the specific thing to change first.
The talks
Six things I can say honestly, because I have lived four of them.
01
Neurodiversity at work
Your best people may be the ones masking hardest. What autistic and ADHD employees are actually spending their energy on, why the accommodations that get offered are usually the wrong ones, and the small structural changes that return the most capacity per dollar spent.
For: leadership teams, HR and people functions, managers who have noticed someone brilliant burning out.
02
Mental health at work
Wellbeing perks do not survive contact with a bad quarter. The difference between a culture that says the right things and one whose processes still function when someone is not okay - and how to tell which one you have before you need to know.
For: all-hands and leadership offsites, conference main stage, manager training.
03
Chronic illness and capacity
A system that only works at full capacity is not a system. What it took to rebuild a consulting practice around a body that does not do long days on demand, and why designing for the harder week makes the ordinary week better for everybody.
For: operations and ops leadership, founder communities, anyone rebuilding after something.
04
The outside read
Nobody in your building can see your business. What a stranger actually finds when they look you up, what AI assistants now say about you before you get a word in, and how to run the check yourself. This one is practical and the room does the exercise live.
For: chambers, industry associations, founder and owner groups, marketing teams.
05
Creative solutions and resource stacking
Most people are sitting on an asset they have never priced. A teenager with fifteen years of piano behind her does not need a summer job - she needs beginner students, her own schedule, and the tax treatment that comes with running something. Same move at every scale: find what you already own, build the offer around that, and stop buying the expensive version everyone recommends. The room works its own constraints out loud.
For: founder and owner groups, chambers, small-business and entrepreneurship programs, anyone being told to spend money they do not have.
06
When helping hurts
A US aid program shipped lentils to Guatemala. Lentils are pig food there, so the warehouses filled while people wondered why America was sending them feed. Good intentions fail quietly, at every scale. A garden planted for people with no dental care, never taught to cook a carrot or warned about the local pests, grows over and everyone goes back to what they knew. A bonus pushes an employee past a benefits threshold and leaves them worse off than before. Same failure, different budget. This is the talk about what has to be true before help actually helps.
For: funders and aid organizations, nonprofits and their boards, community and church programs, CEOs and HR teams who want their generosity to land - and anyone designing something for people whose lives they have not lived.
Formats
Built to fit your program, not to fill it.
- Keynote
- The full argument with the room's own examples worked in. 35 to 45 minutes, plus Q&A
- Conference session
- One topic, tightened, with a takeaway sheet for every attendee. 20 to 30 minutes
- Workshop
- The room does the work. For topic 04 that means auditing their own businesses live. 90 minutes to half a day
- Panel or fireside
- Happy to be the one who says the uncomfortable true thing. As programmed
- Remote
- Any of the above, delivered well rather than delivered apologetically. As programmed
What you get as a host
Everything you need from me, before you have to ask twice.
- A bio and a headshot in short, medium and long, so you are not editing mine at 11pm.
- A session description written for your audience rather than for me.
- Promo assets sized for the platforms you actually post on.
- Slides delivered a week ahead, or none at all if your room runs better without them.
- An accessibility note covering what I need and what I can offer - captions, materials in advance, a quiet room before I go on.
- One follow-up resource for attendees, so the talk is still working two weeks later.
Where I am with this, honestly.
I have spoken for years and I stepped back from it while I was ill. I am booking again from late 2026, which means I do not currently have a long public showreel to send you.
What I do have is eighteen years inside businesses, a weekly podcast where I have this conversation on the record, and a strong preference for saying the true thing to a room rather than the comfortable one. If that is the trade you want, get in touch. If you need someone with a stadium reel, I would rather tell you now than waste your time.
Inquiries
Tell me about the room.
The more you tell me about who is in the audience and what they are tired of hearing, the better the talk gets. I answer by email, usually within two business days.
Email or this form only - I do not book by phone, and that is not a scheduling preference so much as how I keep the work sustainable.
Not booking a speaker, but curious what a stranger sees when they look you up?
That is the other half of what I do, and there is a free version of it.