LEADING FROM WHO YOU’VE BECOME
Identity Lag
You can't lead what's next from an identity you've already outgrown. Your business evolves, your career evolves, and sometimes faster than the story everyone else still holds about you. I call that Identity Lag.
It can show up as a founder whose role no longer fits the business they've built, an executive who knows something has shifted but can't yet name what's next, or a leader whose reputation still reflects an earlier version of them.
My talks and workshops are about recognising that shift, getting clear on what's changed, and leading from who you've become.
Twenty years in strategy. Now I turn the lens on people.
For more than twenty years I've worked across strategy, positioning and transformation, from creative agencies spanning 15+ categories to senior marketing leadership at Bonds, Berlei and Google AUNZ.
I learnt how to earn attention. How to create something distinctive, find the thing that made people care, and make it impossible to ignore.
The shift always came from the strategy underneath the tactics. That's as true for people as it is for brands.
2× Cannes Lions · First-ever ARIA for advertising · Gold Clio · 6× Effectiveness Awards · 7 years judging the Mumbrella Awards
Keynotes
Before I write it I want to know who I'm talking to, what they're navigating, and what you want them thinking or doing differently afterwards.
45-minute keynotes, or 60 minutes with Q&A. Shorter talks, panels and virtual delivery available.
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The hardest brand you'll ever see clearly is your own.
For founders and the communities that gather them.
Most founders can articulate exactly what makes their business valuable. Ask what makes them distinctive and things get harder.
That's because the strengths most natural to us are often the ones we've stopped noticing.
This talk explores why we're poor judges of our own value, how to uncover what's hiding in plain sight, and why getting clearer about what you want to be known for has to come before making yourself more visible.
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You can have no idea what's next and still know, with total certainty, that this isn't it.
For executives and founders at a turning point, and the organisations that would rather not lose them.
Accomplished people are used to having answers. So when something no longer fits but they can't name what comes next, the uncertainty can make them distrust what they already know.
This talk explores that strange territory between identities: why the signal often arrives before the answer, what happens when we keep overriding it, and how to listen earlier without blowing up a perfectly good life.
Because listening earlier isn't the same as acting earlier. The signal deserves attention. It doesn't get to give orders.
And it rarely ends in a resignation. For plenty of the founders and executives I work with, the context stays exactly the same. They don't.
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When the person who built the business has to evolve to lead what comes next.
For founders and founder communities navigating growth.
At some point, the business starts asking something different of its founder.
The person who did everything has to lead differently. The founder known entirely through the company may need an identity beyond it. The strengths that built the business may no longer be where they create the greatest value.
This talk explores the identity shifts that accompany growth, and how founders can evolve their role deliberately rather than waiting for the business to force the issue.
Workshops
My workshops are not lectures, they are working sessions built for a room to turn the same tools on themselves.
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See what you've become too close to see.
It starts with a simple experiment.
Tell the person beside you what you do. Then ask them what actually stuck.
It's rarely what you expected. Often it's something you nearly skipped because it felt too obvious to mention.
That's where we start digging.
Brand Archaeology helps people uncover the strengths, patterns and perspective they've stopped noticing in themselves, and put clearer language around what they want to be known for.
30 minutes. Standalone, or designed to follow Identity Before Visibility.
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You've written hundreds of briefs. Audience. Insight. Objective. Selling points. Reasons to believe.
So why is the brief on you the hardest one you'll ever write?
In this workshop marketers turn the strategic tools they use on brands onto themselves: identifying the strengths they've stopped noticing, getting clear about what they want next, and building the evidence and language to support it.
90 minutes. For marketing and communications teams.
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For founder communities, accelerators, executive cohorts and leadership teams navigating growth, transition or change.
Sessions are built around what's actually happening on the day, with identity, positioning, reputation and leadership worked on together rather than delivered from a stage.
Half-day and full-day formats.
Also available on commission: Why the Work Doesn't Speak for Itself, for senior experts, professional-services firms and women's leadership programmes.
Let's talk
Based in Noosa. Speaking nationally and internationally, in person and virtually. Keynotes, panels, founder communities, executive offsites and workshops.
Tell me about your audience, what they're navigating and what you want them to walk away with. I'll come back to you within two business days.