Speaking

Interactive keynotes and workshops for leaders navigating complexity, pressure and high-stakes decisions.

Emily Thompson doesn't teach leadership theory, she works inside it - coaching executives, advising fast-moving companies and speaking from environments where decisions carry real consequences. Her talks give leaders frameworks they use the next day, not concepts they file away and forget.

“She’s been in the room where it matters. You can tell. Every example landed because it was real.”

Each talk is available as a keynote or extended workshop and can be customized for your audience and format.

Signature Keynote Talks

⇒ How Leaders Think Clearly When Complexity, Speed, and Technology Collide
AI is accelerating decision-making while simultaneously weakening how we think. Leaders are expected to move faster than ever, making higher-stakes calls with less certainty. In this talk, Emily explores how leaders preserve clarity and decision quality when speed, automation, and information overload collide. Drawing on real-world examples from high-stakes, regulated, and fast-moving organizations, she shows where human thinking breaks down, why more information often leads to worse decisions, and how leaders can design systems that strengthen their critical thinking.
Emily brings a systems-level lens shaped by work in fast-moving, highly regulated environments where decision quality isn’t theoretical; it has real consequences.
This talk is for:
Leaders, founders and teams making high-stakes decisions in fast-moving, AI-enabled environments.

⇒ How to Command Any Room with Confidence and Clarity
Most professionals know their content cold, but confidence doesn't come from knowledge alone. The gap between competence and presence is what separates speakers who inform from speakers who influence. In this interactive talk, Emily reveals the framework behind powerful presenting: how to structure talks that stick, eliminate the language patterns that undermine authority and use grounding techniques that transform nervous energy into grounded presence. Participants practice live with real-time feedback, leaving with tools they can apply immediately to team meetings, executive presentations, and high-stakes conversations.
This talk is for:
Leaders, founders, and professionals who need to present with authority in any room, at any scale.

⇒ Designing Systems That Actually Work
Burnout and constant urgency aren’t personal failures, they’re symptoms of broken systems. Most leaders don’t need better time management; they need better-designed work. This talk reframes time management away from hacks and self-discipline and toward how work actually gets done. Emily reveals why even top performers feel underwater, how invisible systems create overload and what leaders can change to reduce friction without sacrificing results. For example: why saying yes to "quick syncs" cascades into calendar chaos and how to redesign meetings to protect deep work. Participants leave with a practical lens for identifying false urgency, reclaiming focus, and building systems that support sustained performance in always-on environments.
This talk is for:
Leaders and teams overwhelmed by pace, competing priorities and the pressure to always be on.

⇒ What the People Who Shape Us Teach Us About Leading Others
In this talk, Emily looks at leadership through an unexpected lens: the lessons we learn from the people who shaped us before we entered the workplace. Drawing from the stories behind her book Don’t Skip the Party, she connects the seemingly simple things bada** grandparents do instinctively, like show up, pay attention, make people feel important, and create traditions or routines to the behaviors that make leaders worth following.
Through personal stories, humor and practical leadership lessons, Emily challenges audiences to think beyond what they accomplish as leaders and consider something bigger: how people experience them and what they leave behind.
This talk is for:
Leaders and organizations who want to build cultures where people feel seen, valued and connected—and rethink what it means to leave a legacy.

⇒ How Great Leaders Build Alignment Under Pressure
The hardest rooms aren't necessarily the ones with the most disagreement. They're the ones where people walk in with different priorities, pressures and definitions of success, and somehow have to leave moving in the same direction.
In this talk, Emily shows leaders how to build alignment when the stakes are high and agreement isn't guaranteed. Using real-world stories, behavioral science and her practical WIN framework, she explores why the most important work often happens before the meeting, why agreement and ownership aren't the same thing, and how strong leaders navigate resistance without creating more of it. Participants learn how to identify whose voice is missing, build genuine ownership and respond to pushback in ways that keep the conversation moving forward.
Participants leave with a practical framework they can use in the rooms where alignment matters most.
This talk is for:
Leaders, executives and teams who need to build alignment, navigate resistance and move important work forward.