Topics
Katie's most requested keynote & workshop topics.
Generational Intelligence, Rehumanise, The Wonder Effect, Lichen Leadership, Leading From the Middle, Leading Change Without Losing Your Mind.
01 Generational Intelligence.
Katie's most requested topic.
“Gen Z is driving us nuts.”
“Senior leaders don’t get it.”
“Nothing we try is working.”
Five generations. Three competing models of work. One organisation trying to hold it all together.
In this sharp, thought-provoking keynote, Katie unpacks what’s really driving friction in your organisation and why so many teams feel harder to lead than they should. From how each generation was formed, to why Gen Z is challenging long-held assumptions about work, leadership and success, to the invisible rules shaping behaviour, performance and disengagement.
Generational tension is less about age and more about mismatched expectations, trust, and fundamentally different beliefs about what good work looks like. Understanding this will unlock cohesion, trust and performance.
Offerings: Keynote Speaking & The Praxis Collective Workshops.
02 Rehumanise.
Leading with trust, story and courage in an age of AI
AI is rewriting the rules of work - but it’s also eroding trust, fragmenting culture, and accelerating burnout. In this provocative and humanising keynote, Katie Iles goes beyond the hype to unpack the real leadership challenge of our time: how to stay human and find meaning when everything else is becoming automated.
Grounded in neuroscience, behavioural psychology, and the latest data on AI’s social impact across generations, this talk equips leaders with the tools to build trust, lead with story, and foster human connection in tech-saturated environments. If your audience is navigating change, trust breakdown or hybrid fatigue, this is the keynote they need.
Offerings: Keynote Speaking.
03 The Wonder Effect.
Why awe is the most underused productivity hack of our time.
Burnout. Disengagement. Cognitive overload. Today’s leaders and teams are often exhausted, cynical and disconnected. And the usual fixes aren’t working.
In this fascinating, uplifting and research-backed keynote, Katie Iles reveals why awe, curiosity and a capacity for wonder are not woo woo soft skills but performance accelerators. Drawing on neuroscience, leadership theory and real-world application, this talk shows how cultivating “micro moments of wonder” can enhance creativity, expand time perception, reduce stress and create more human, generative and high-performing cultures.
Offerings: Keynote Speaking.
04 Lichen Leadership
Inspired by her Book.
Lichen has survived for 400 million years. It grows where nothing else can. It withstands conditions that should kill it — drought, ice, and even the space void. It builds thriving ecosystems in the most hostile environments on Earth.
Unlike the modern day workforce, lichen doesn't succeed through competition, dominance or control. Nor does it reward individual brilliance. It is a collaboration so well designed that it produces capabilities that outperform and outlast everything around it. It is the ultimate high performing team.
Lichen logic is 400 million years old. And it is the most useful thing most organisations have never considered.
This keynote translates the fascinating biology of lichen into a practical leadership framework for building teams that sustain genuine high performance under extreme pressure – without burning through the people who make it possible.
Offerings: Keynote Speaking & The Praxis Collective Workshops.
06 Leading From the Middle.
For executives and leaders.
Middle managers are burning out at alarming rates. Frontline pressure below. Executive expectation above. High responsibility for outcomes often without the structural support needed to achieve them. They’re skilled, committed and feeling the pressure.
This workshop is for the leaders wedged in the middle of it all who need to lead up and down. We work through role clarity, decision authority, and how to hold accountability without becoming the bottleneck. How to lead peers. How to manage up with confidence and build capability in emerging leaders. How to stop absorbing load and develop better systems.
You leave with clarity, capability around communications, conflict and hard conversations, boundaries, success metrics, escalation pathways, and language to lead effectively across all levels.
Offerings: Keynote Speaking & The Praxis Collective Workshops.
07 Leading Change Without Losing Your Mind.
For executives and leaders.
Your people aren't resisting change. They're grieving the version of work they understood. AI, restructures, hybrid, rising cost pressure and staff engagement and wellbeing keeps the ground moving. Leaders absorb the brunt of it, and it takes a toll.
This workshop is for leaders navigating change without a playbook. We work through trust, communication and what actually drives performance under pressure. From restructures to system transformation, this interactive workshop gets people thinking about the psychology of change and how to apply it in their context.
You leave with language for the conversations nobody's having, and a steadier read on what your team actually needs from you right now.
Offerings: Keynote Speaking & The Praxis Collective Workshops.
