Ideas that stay with people long after the event ends.
Keynotes for founders, investors and senior leaders who have heard enough inspiration. Each one is built around a single argument, and designed to be used the following Monday.
Speaking professionally since my twenties · TEDx three times · Global stages
One through-line: the decisions capital makes permanent.
Making the Call
Courageous decisions in the moments that matter.
Most leaders already know the right call. This talk is about the courage to make it, and what changes for a leader, a team and a business when the call is made.
The audience leaves with the five moments where courage is tested (the BRAVE Model), why experienced leaders avoid the calls they know they should make, and language for naming the decision nobody wants to raise.
Best for: leadership conferences · senior team offsites · banks and professional services · founder and investor summits
Leading With Other People's Money
What changes the day after the round closes.
The skills that got the business funded won't run it. A new board, new expectations and a bigger team change the job overnight. Most founders make that shift without a map.
The audience leaves with what investors are really backing after the raise, how to lead a board rather than report to one, and how to decide what the money should not fund.
Best for: accelerators and venture programmes · investor portfolio days · scale-up conferences · impact investment events
Unforgettable by Design
The craft of high-stakes presentations.
The presentations that matter most, to a board, an investor, a major client or a whole company, are rarely the ones leaders prepare best. The ones people remember are built, not improvised: designed backwards from the decision the room needs to make, then delivered with clear thinking under pressure.
The audience leaves with how to design a presentation from the outcome back using the CRAFT model, why most presentation advice makes leaders worse, how to say less and land more, and how to take the hard question without losing the room.
Best for: leadership teams facing boards, investors or major clients · communications and sales conferences · pitch events and demo days · founder programmes
Built From the Inside
Leading in systems that weren't designed for you.
Most founders are told to disrupt the system. The ones who last learn to read it: the fees, the permits, the insurance clauses, and the people who profit from things staying as they are. Then they build something alongside it that doesn't need its permission to exist.
- Your doubt may be your expertise.
- Store the light for the dark.
- Ask "and then what?" before you take the money.
- Pause before you rebuild.
- Integrity costs more than compromise. Count it anyway.
- Be urgent about effort and patient with results.
- Build alongside the system, not against it.
Drawn from David's forthcoming novel about two sibling founders building a company on a small island, against the odds and against the system. The principles are available now. The full story arrives with the book in 2027.
Best for: impact and social investment events · diaspora and Black founder networks · accelerators and purpose-led founder programmes · inclusion programmes in banks and professional services
"Your audience has been in enough rooms. David McQueen is one of the few speakers who changes the way people think, not just the way they feel for forty minutes."
"I have sat through a lot of communications sessions. This was the only one where I changed something immediately the next day."
- A first conversation. 30 minutes on your audience and what you need them to leave with.
- Brief and tailoring. I adapt the talk to your sector, stage and context.
- A check-in a week before. Logistics, AV and any last changes.
- Delivery and follow-up. I stay for Q&A where I can, then send the resources mentioned.
Tell me about your event.
Not a booking form. A conversation about whether this is the right fit for your audience.
Check availability