Most rooms have heard the AI talk already. What they have rarely heard is what actually has to change inside the work before any of it holds — and what happens to a firm when the founder is still the invisible specification behind every good output.
One argument, made properly, with examples the room recognises. Q&A if the schedule allows it.
Smaller room, more conversation. Works best when the group shares a sector, because the examples can be specific rather than generic.
Working session. Each firm leaves having mapped one recurring job and identified what it actually depends on.
Not from a stage career. I spend most of my time inside founder-led firms working on the constraint itself, which is why the examples in a talk are specific rather than general — and why the questions afterwards tend to be the useful kind.
Backstage at the Steven Bartlett Business & Life Speaking Tour, Australia.
What they have generally not been given is anything they can act on when they get back to a practice, a firm or a studio with eleven people and no operations team.
So the examples are sector-specific, not generic: the quote that always comes back for the principal to check, the report nobody else will sign off, the referral that sits because one person knows how it is normally handled. Every room has its own version, and naming it is what makes the rest land.
I will ask who is in the room before agreeing a topic. If the fit is wrong, I would rather say so than deliver a talk that does not belong there.
Strategy, leadership and operating work across complex organisations — BHP, Microsoft, Vodafone, LexisNexis — and a decade inside founder-led firms where the same constraint keeps appearing in a different shape.
The talks come out of the work rather than the other way round.
“Angela helped solidify our business goals and strategy to attain growth and success.”
Those two answers decide the topic and the format. If I am not the right person for that room, I will tell you.