Speaking · David McQueen

Crafted for the room,
delivered with courage.

For senior leadership audiences navigating complexity, capital, and uncertainty. Evidence and experience-based content for practical application. Every session is built around a single thesis, developed with rigour, and applied to the conditions the audience is actually navigating.

The Speaking Portfolio

Two distinct
formats. Two
different jobs.

Keynotes provoke. Masterclasses equip. Each is designed for a different moment in a leader's journey: a different conversation in the room.

60–90 min · Conference / Offsite / Virtual

Keynotes

Ideas that change the conversation. One-hour addresses built around a single thesis, developed with rigour, and applied to the conditions the audience is navigating. Five keynotes available: one signature, four domain-specific. Nothing is a repeat performance. Every engagement is prepared for the specific room.

Explore Keynotes
2–4 hrs · Executive Teams / Senior Groups

Masterclasses

Experiences that change capability. Not longer keynotes: different work entirely. The frameworks are applied to the room's actual context, tested in structured group exercises, and owned by participants before they leave. Four masterclasses available, each named after the room where the work gets done.

Explore Masterclasses
The Keynotes

Five keynotes.
One signature.
Four domains.

The signature keynote works for any senior leadership audience. The four domain keynotes are built around the specific pressure points where decision quality most determines what follows.

Signature

The Brave Leader

What leadership requires when certainty disappears. A study of the characteristics that allow leaders to navigate complexity with clarity, and the habits that quietly undermine them.

Governance

Who Actually Decides Here?

A forensic look at how organisations lose decision clarity, and how the best ones build it back. For boards, executive teams, and any leadership group where accountability has become ambiguous.

Capital & Growth

Show Me The Money

The relationship between capital, ambition, and growth, and what founders and CEOs misunderstand about investors, about their own readiness, and about what capital actually costs.

Storytelling

A Well Told Story

Your story is not decoration, it is an organisational asset. This keynote examines how leaders build, protect, and deploy narrative as a strategic tool.

Decision-Making

What Breaks Under Pressure

What happens to judgement when the stakes rise, the clock is running, and the information is incomplete. A rigorous examination of decision quality under real conditions, not controlled experiments.

The Masterclasses

Four rooms.
Focused on Mastery.

From: What Breaks Under Pressure

The Decision Room

Make better decisions when the information is incomplete, the clock is running, and the outcomes matter. An executive masterclass on decision quality. Focusing on how we actually make decisions, where we go wrong, and how to build a more rigorous practice.

From: Who Actually Decides Here?

The Accountability Room

Clarify who decides, who advises, who executes, and who owns the result. Particularly strong for executive teams. Leaders leave with clarity on the five decisions they need to address this quarter.

From: Show Me The Money

The Growth Room

Understand what your organisation needs to fund its ambition and what investors need to believe. For founders, scaleups, and entrepreneurial leadership teams preparing to raise or deploy significant capital.

From: A Well Told Story

The Story Room

Participants build two things in the session: the One-Minute Story and the Strategic Story, for their organisation, proposition, or leadership agenda. Applied storytelling at the level that changes what investors, boards, and talent believe.

When Organisations Book This Work

For senior leaders who want practical application over entertainment.

These sessions work when the audience is senior, the stakes are genuine, and the organiser wants the room to leave with something it will still be using six months later.

Leadership Teams Under Sustained Pressure

Growth, restructuring, market shifts, or regulatory change: where the quality of leadership thinking determines outcomes and generic motivation is not what the room needs.

Organisations Navigating Major Transitions

M&A integration, leadership succession, strategic pivots, or cultural transformation: where old operating systems are insufficient and new ones must be built.

Conferences for Senior Practitioners

CEO forums, executive gatherings, board retreats, or industry associations where the audience carries real accountability and will reference the session in the room it returns to.

Strategy Days and Senior Offsites

Annual planning sessions, quarterly reviews, or leadership offsites where thinking needs to shift before the decisions of the day are made.

What Organisers Should Know

Before anything is confirmed,
I need to understand
the room.

Before a session is confirmed, I want to understand who is in the room, what they are carrying, and what a well-spent session would actually produce. The thesis stays intact. The application adapts.

Many advisory relationships begin with a speaking engagement. If the session surfaces decisions or challenges the organisation needs to work through in depth, that conversation is available.

The Details
  • Every engagement is built for your audience, not off the shelf.
  • Delivered in person, virtually, or hybrid. UK and international.
  • Eight to twelve weeks lead time preferred for conferences. Shorter timelines possible for corporate sessions.
  • Keynote fee is five figures. Availability is limited. Not every enquiry leads to a booking.
  • Masterclass pricing is based on format, duration, and group size.

If your leaders need reassurance, there are easier rooms to be in. If they need clarity, we should talk.

Enquire About Speaking

Before anything is confirmed,
I need to understand
your room.

For keynotes and masterclasses, before a session is confirmed, I want to understand who is in the room, what they are carrying, and what a well-spent session would actually produce.

Keynote fee range is five figures. If this is outside your current budget, please note that in your enquiry.

All enquiries are read personally. You will receive a direct response within two working days.

Not every enquiry leads to a booking — that is said plainly and early.