Speaking & Workshops

Events That Change the Conversation

Provocative, grounded, and practical — for corporate stages and wellness gatherings alike. Jonathan challenges your audience to take ownership of their own situation, and to hold the people around them accountable to do the same.

Check AvailabilityEngagements $7,500 to $35,000

“Jonathan delivered exactly what our conference needed — a speaker who could challenge assumptions while inspiring action.”

Meera Oliva, CMO at Candidly
  • Inc. Top 100 Leadership Speaker
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Author of Good Authority
  • 25 years advising leaders

Recent audiences include leaders at

  • TikTok
  • Amazon
  • Southwest Airlines
  • Okta
  • Strava
  • Panasonic Energy
  • McKesson
  • Sherwin-Williams
  • ZipRecruiter

Signature Talks

Pick the conversation your room needs

Each talk is customized to your organization after a discovery call. These are the starting points.

Good Authority in the Age of AI

The machines are learning to think. What’s being asked of leaders now is presence, connection, and the courage to feel — and that changes everything about growing people.

Best for: Executive offsites, conferences, fast-moving orgs

The audience leaves with

  • The parts of leadership that can’t be delegated to a model
  • Where managers still create leverage — and where they no longer do
  • How to grow people when the work is changing under them

Becoming Who You Actually Are

The conversations you avoid become the shape of your life. This one is about the ones that don’t come with a job title — with your family, your closest friend, and the version of yourself you keep postponing.

Best for: Wellness and lifestyle gatherings, retreats, mixed-audience conferences

The audience leaves with

  • Why the conversations you keep replaying are the ones telling you who you are
  • How to say the true thing without burning down the relationship
  • Boundaries as an act of leaning in — not a way of staying out

The Accountability Dial

The five-stage practice that changes how leaders handle the conversation they’ve been avoiding.

Best for: Leadership summits, manager cohorts, all-hands, workshop settings

The audience leaves with

  • A shared language for feedback that outlasts the event
  • The five stages, in order, and when to move between them
  • A script for the hardest conversation on Monday’s calendar

Building Accountability Cultures

Why most culture initiatives fade, and what to build instead of another poster in the hallway.

Best for: People and HR leadership summits, culture teams

The audience leaves with

  • Why values statements don’t change behavior
  • Accountability as infrastructure, not aspiration
  • The first three things to change when you get back

Formats & Investment

Three ways to bring this in

Every engagement includes a discovery call, a session customized to your context, the framework materials, and a follow-up resource guide for participants.

  • Virtual Session

    90 minutes

    From $7.5K

    Interactive session over Zoom or Teams for a leadership team or a full all-hands. No travel required.

  • Leadership Offsite

    4 hours, up to 100 people

    From $15K

    In-person working session for an executive team. Participants don’t just learn the framework — they practice it.

  • Conference Keynote

    45–60 minutes

    $35K all-in

    Includes 500 copies of Good Authority, full production support, and a pre-conference design session.

Travel billed at cost for in-person. Full fee details, add-ons, and non-profit rates

“Jonathan delivered exactly what our conference needed — a speaker who could challenge assumptions while inspiring action.”

Meera Oliva

CMO at Candidly

“I saw many heads bobbing in agreement as Jonathan spoke. Attendees were snapping photos of the slides and taking notes furiously. Lots of requests for copies of the recording.”

Bridget L. Portier · University of Houston

On The Accountability Dial

“The most valuable takeaway was learning how to approach and navigate uncomfortable conversations.”

Program participant · Voltage Park Leadership Program

Case Study

Voltage Park put its CEO and front-line managers in one room for an afternoon and left with shared accountability language.

Read it

What Happens Next

  1. 01

    Send the details

    Event, approximate date, audience. Takes about two minutes and there’s no obligation.

  2. 02

    Discovery call

    Thirty minutes to understand the room, the moment your organization is in, and whether this is the right fit.

  3. 03

    Built for your context

    The talk gets designed around what your leaders are actually dealing with. Never a template off the shelf.

Before You Ask

What organizers usually want to know

How far in advance should we book?
For a conference keynote, six months or more is typical — those calendars fill early, and the pre-conference design session works best with real runway. Leadership offsites usually come together faster. Virtual sessions are the most flexible and can sometimes happen within a few weeks. If your date is sooner than that, send it anyway. Sometimes it works, and I'd rather tell you than have you assume it's a no.
How much do you customize the talk?
Every engagement starts with a discovery call, and what I learn there changes the talk. The frameworks stay the same — that's the part that's been tested on a hundred thousand managers — but the examples, the language, and the specific problems I name come from your organization. I'm listening for what your leaders are actually dealing with on a Tuesday. It's never a template pulled off the shelf.
How many people can attend?
Conference keynotes have no practical ceiling — I've spoken to rooms of every size. Leadership offsites work well anywhere from a single executive team up to about a hundred people; the larger the room, the more the format shifts from practice to demonstration, which we'd talk through beforehand. Virtual sessions work for a leadership team or a full all-hands, whatever the headcount.
Are copies of Good Authority included?
With the conference keynote, yes — the all-in rate includes 500 copies, along with full production support and a pre-conference design session. For other formats, team book bundles are quoted separately. Say the word during booking and I'll work it into the proposal.
Do you travel internationally?
Sometimes. I'm selective about international travel, so it's worth a conversation rather than a yes or no — tell me the event and the date and I'll be straight with you about whether it works. Travel and lodging are billed at cost on top of the engagement fee. When travel doesn't make sense, a virtual session covers a lot of the same ground.
Can we record the session?
Yes, for internal use — replaying it for people who couldn't attend, or keeping it in your leadership library. Public distribution is a separate conversation. Just flag that you'd like to record when we're setting things up so I can plan for it.
How do I know if you're the right fit for our room?
Ask me and I'll tell you honestly. My approach is practical and a little confronting — it treats leadership as personal growth work, which means the room does some looking in the mirror. If your audience is ready for that, it lands hard and lasts. If you're looking for a purely motivational hour that leaves everyone feeling good and changes nothing on Monday, I'm the wrong choice, and I'll say so rather than take the booking.

Speaking Inquiry

Check availability

No obligation. I’ll tell you honestly if I’m not the right fit for your event.

Event organizers: bios, headshots, and topics

Speaker bureau inquiries: BigSpeak

Book Jonathan

$7,500 to $35,000

Check Availability