Speaking

Keynotes and executive sessions on judgment, decision-making, and organizational intelligence in the age of AI.

Kevin has spoken in more than 50 cities across North America, Europe, and Asia, from enterprise leadership teams to global conferences, executive education programs, and policy organizations, on what it actually takes for organizations to think and decide well when their tools keep getting smarter.

Signature talks

Eight keynotes shaping how leaders think about data, AI, and decisions.

i.
Who Decides?
Flagship · 45–60 min

Across your organization, decisions that used to belong to people are quietly being handed to machines that show up as defaults, scores, and confident recommendations. None of them announce themselves as decisions, so the handoff happens without anyone choosing it, and by the time the cost appears, no one can say who actually decided. This keynote shows leaders how to see that handoff clearly, tell which calls belong to the machine and which belong to a human, and leave with a simple five-part check for keeping judgment where it counts.

What audiences take away
  • How to spot the quiet handoff, the moment a real decision passes from a person to a system, and catch it before it becomes a cost
  • How to calibrate trust in automation: which decisions to hand off, which to keep, and where humans and machines should be checking each other's work
  • The Automation Trust Check, a five-question tool they can run in any meeting to decide when to lean on a system and when to keep their hands on the wheel
ii.
The Judgment Gap
Flagship · 45–60 min

Most organizations don't have a data problem. They have a judgment problem. After decades of investment in data infrastructure, dashboards, and analytics platforms, decision quality has barely moved. This keynote unpacks why and what it takes to close the gap between having information and actually deciding well with it.

What audiences take away
  • A clear framework for diagnosing where judgment breaks down in their organization
  • The cognitive, cultural, and structural levers that actually shift decision quality
  • A new vocabulary for talking about decisions as a system, not a moment
iii.
Human Judgment in the AI Era
45–60 min

Generative AI shifts what gets automated from execution to judgment itself. The organizations that thrive will not be the ones with the most powerful AI; they will be the ones whose people retain the cognitive capabilities to use AI well. This talk explores the human skills that matter most as AI becomes embedded in everyday decisions.

What audiences take away
  • The specific cognitive capabilities that matter most when working alongside AI
  • A model for distinguishing AI as a tool, an advisor, and a decision-maker
  • Practical guidance for building human judgment back into AI-augmented workflows
iv.
Decision Architecture
45–60 min

An organization's decisions are not just made by people. They are shaped by the structures, signals, and habits that determine what gets seen, what gets discussed, and what gets acted on. This keynote treats decision-making as something organizations can design and walks through what good design looks like.

What audiences take away
  • A blueprint for diagnosing and redesigning their organization's decision architecture
  • The four most common architectural failure modes — and how to fix them
  • How to build decision systems that learn, not just decide
v.
Beyond Multiple Choice: Using LLMs to Assess Data Thinking at Scalee
45–60 min

For decades, assessment defaulted to what was cheap to score: multiple choice. The problem is that recognizing the right answer on a page is not the same as reasoning your way to it, and organizations that need evidence of judgment, not recall, have had no scalable way to measure it. Learn how LLMs remove that constraint, not by grading correctness, but by making rubric-based evaluation of open-ended reasoning economically viable for the first time. Kevin walks through what a reliable rubric actually requires, what separates a defensible system from a risky one, and where the line falls between formative feedback and high-stakes scoring.

What audiences take away
  • A working framework for building rubrics with AI that score reasoning, not writing quality or fluency
  • The validation discipline that makes AI-scored assessment trustworthy: calibration against expert human judgment, not model agreement
  • A clear model for matching AI oversight to the stakes of the decision, from coaching feedback to high-stakes evaluation
vi.
Beyond the Tech
45–60 min

Technology transformations stall, not because the technology fails, but because the organizational systems around it weren't designed to change. This keynote explores the cultural, cognitive, and structural foundations that determine whether AI and digital investments actually produce the outcomes leaders expected.

What audiences take away
  • The three layers of organizational change that technology programs typically ignore
  • A diagnostic for identifying where transformation efforts will stall
  • How to design transformation around capability, not just deployment
vii.
Data Literacy for Modern Organizations
45–60 min

Data literacy is not the ability to read a chart. It is the cognitive habit of distinguishing signal from noise, evidence from anecdote, and confidence from certainty. This talk reframes data literacy as a strategic organizational capability and shows leaders how to build it deliberately.

What audiences take away
  • A modern definition of data literacy fit for the AI era
  • The four dimensions of literacy organizations need to build at scale
  • How to move beyond training into culture-level capability
viii.
Organizational Intelligence
45–60 min

Some organizations sense change earlier, decide faster, and adapt better than others. The difference is rarely about IQ or resources, it is about how the organization itself thinks. This keynote treats intelligence as a systems property and shows leaders how to build organizations that learn at speed.

What audiences take away
  • A systems-level model of organizational intelligence
  • The five capabilities that separate sensing organizations from reacting ones
  • Practical steps for raising organizational IQ without restructuring
"LOVED your session! I shared in my survey that it should be required viewing. I heard way too many comments in other presentations filled with bias and unfounded causal assumptions. You were spot on."
Eric Ford, DMin, PhD  ·  Audience member
Audiences & formats

From keynotes to multi-day executive sessions.

Conference keynotes
Opening, closing, and feature keynotes for industry conferences, summits, and global events on data, AI, transformation, and leadership.
Executive sessions
Leadership offsites, board sessions, and strategic team retreats — typically 90 minutes to a half day, often paired with diagnostic or simulation work.
University & executive ed
Guest lectures and program-length engagements for university executive education and graduate programs in business, public policy, and information science.
Workshops
Multi-day capability-building workshops for leadership teams, often combining keynote content with hands-on diagnostic and decision-design work.
Inquiries

Considering Kevin for an upcoming event? Send a note with the date, audience, and topic you have in mind.

Available globally for keynotes, executive sessions, and workshops. Most engagements are booked three to six months in advance.

Submit a speaking inquiry
  • i.Executive leadership teams navigating AI strategy
  • ii.Conferences on data, AI, and digital transformation
  • iii.Boards and senior leadership offsites
  • iv.University and executive education programs
  • v.Policy, public sector, and global development organizations