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Purple Unicorn Coaching
  • Home
  • Coaching
  • Who I Help
  • For Organizations
  • Speaking
  • About Jeff
  • Insights

Speaking & Workshops

Talks That Help Technical Leaders Name What is Really Happening Under Pressure

Speaking and facilitated sessions for organizations navigating leadership transitions, AI anxiety, burnout-adjacent strain, introverted leadership, cross-functional friction, and the human side of technical performance.

Inquire About Speaking

A Brief Message About How I Approach Speaking Engagements and Collaboration

 Technical audiences are quick to sense when a speaker does not understand their world.

My sessions are designed to be thoughtful, grounded, and practical, with enough technical fluency to earn trust and enough human language to help people talk about what is usually left unnamed.

For meeting planners: a speaker kit with bio, topics, formats, and event details is available below.

Technical Audiences do not Need Empty Inspiration

The best sessions help people recognize patterns, talk about difficult dynamics with less defensiveness, and leave with ideas they can use in real conversations, decisions, and leadership moments.

Create Shared Language

Name the leadership and culture patterns people feel but may not know how to discuss clearly.

Reduce Hidden Friction

Help teams see how communication styles, decision habits, role transitions, and unspoken pressure affect delivery and trust.

Support Leaders Under Pressure

 Give technical leaders practical ways to navigate visibility, influence, confidence, AI disruption, and the shift from expert to leader.

Turn Recognition into Action

 


Move beyond “that was interesting” into clearer conversations, better decisions, and more intentional leadership behavior.

Core Speaking Themes

Leadership Identity After Technical Excellence

AI and the Changing Identity of Engineering Work

Leadership Identity After Technical Excellence

Helping engineers, technical leaders, and managers navigate the shift from doing the work to leading through influence, judgment, communication, and others.

Sustainable Technical Leadership

AI and the Changing Identity of Engineering Work

Leadership Identity After Technical Excellence

Naming the cost of over-functioning, hidden dependency, heroic effort, and being the person everyone trusts to figure it out.

AI and the Changing Identity of Engineering Work

AI and the Changing Identity of Engineering Work

AI and the Changing Identity of Engineering Work

 Helping technical audiences think clearly about AI adoption, developer judgment, craft, confidence, and the anxiety that comes when expertise itself feels like it is shifting.

Introverted and Thoughtful Leadership

Trust, Communication, and Human Systems

AI and the Changing Identity of Engineering Work

Reframing leadership presence for people who influence through listening, clarity, preparation, pattern recognition, and intentional action rather than volume.

Trust, Communication, and Human Systems

Trust, Communication, and Human Systems

Trust, Communication, and Human Systems

Trust, Communication, and Human Systems

Trust, Communication, and Human Systems

Helping teams surface risk earlier, communicate across different working and processing styles, and build cultures where performance does not require people to disappear behind the work.

FEATURED SIGNATURE PROGRAMS

Each program can stand alone as a keynote, workshop, leadership session, or facilitated conversation. Programs can also be adapted to fit your audience, leadership level, and organizational context.

Hearts in Hardware™

Heart centered on a circuit board

Empathy in Tech Teams and Human-First Leadership Practices


A practical exploration of how empathy shows up in real technical environments, shaping trust, communication, and delivery under pressure.


Best for: Technical leaders, engineering managers, people leaders
What shifts: Teams communicate more clearly, surface risk earlier, and operate with greater trust and accountability
Formats: Keynote, interactive workshop, leadership session 

Quiet Sparks™

Single gently glowing flame

Unlocking Introverted Leadership in Technical Roles


A reframing of leadership presence for thoughtful, analytical leaders who influence through clarity, listening, and intentional action rather than volume.


Best for: Introverted technical leaders and the executives who support them
What shifts: Increased confidence, clearer executive presence, and sustainable leadership energy
Formats: Keynote, workshop, executive cohort session 

The Augmented Engineer™

Glowing circuit board on half of an engineers face

Using AI to Enhance, Not Erase, Developer Intuition


A grounded examination of how AI changes the way engineers think, collaborate, and build, and how leaders can guide adoption without losing quality or craft.


Best for: Engineering leaders and senior developers
What shifts: More thoughtful AI adoption, stronger code quality, and healthier development practices
Formats: Keynote, technical leadership workshop, internal learning session 

The Executive Ascent™

Climber ascending a mountain

Coaching Engineers Into Confident, Business-Savvy Tech Executives


A leadership-focused program that supports engineers stepping into executive responsibility, grounded in the Unicorn’s Ascent Framework™.

Best for: Emerging tech executives and high-potential leaders

What shifts: Stronger executive presence, clearer business alignment, and confident leadership under complexity
Formats: Keynote, cohort-based workshop, executive session 

Additional Signature Programs and Tailored Topics

I also offer additional programs and facilitated sessions that can be tailored to your organization’s goals, audience, and current leadership context.


Unicorn Sync™

Building cross-functional harmony across product, design, and engineering teams.


Signal & Soul™

A systems-oriented look at team dynamics, emotional signal, and leadership attention before problems become visible failures.


Magic in the Middle™

Low-code AI agents and human-centered automation to reduce friction, manual work, and operational drag.


The Unicorn’s Compass™

A decision-making framework for technical leaders navigating uncertainty, tradeoffs, and organizational pressure.


Additional Suggested Topics

  • The loss of individual contributor identity in technical leadership
  • Telling leadership accomplishment stories without taking credit from the team
  • AI anxiety and the future of technical expertise
  • Leading across drivers, processors, introverts, and consensus-builders
  • Burnout-adjacent strain in high-performing technical teams
  • Psychological safety as a performance strategy
  • Decision-making under ambiguity
  • Helping technical leaders become more visible without becoming performative


Why This Resonates With Technical and Executive Audiences

Built from Inside the Technology World

I have spent more than three decades inside technology work: engineering, architecture, executive leadership, hiring, delivery, and leading teams through complexity.


That background matters with technical audiences.


Engineers, managers, and technical executives can usually tell when a speaker is describing their world from the outside. My work comes from lived experience inside the systems, pressures, communication patterns, and leadership transitions that shape technical organizations.


What audiences recognize quickly

  • The challenges are named without blame, theater, or oversimplification
  • The language respects both technical reality and human experience
  • The focus stays on practical leadership behavior, not generic inspiration
  • The sessions create room for thoughtful, introverted, analytical, and high-performing people to recognize themselves

Formats, Speaker Kit, and Next Steps

For Event Planners

Start With an Inquiry

For Event Planners

 These sessions can be adapted for technical audiences including senior engineers, tech leads, engineering managers, directors, and cross-functional leadership groups. 


Sessions can be delivered as keynotes, workshops, facilitated conversations, or cohort-style experiences. We can shape the topic around your audience, event goals, format, and timing. 

Available Formats

Start With an Inquiry

For Event Planners

  • Keynotes
  • Interactive workshops
  • Facilitated leadership or team sessions
  • Executive offsites
  • Leadership retreats
  • Internal leadership forums
  • Cohort-based sessions

Start With an Inquiry

Start With an Inquiry

Start With an Inquiry

The first step is a simple conversation about your audience, goals, format, timing, and the leadership themes you want to address.


If there is alignment, we can outline the right session and next step.

Inquire About Speaking

Download the speaker kit for event planners, HR partners, and internal sponsors.

Speaker Info Kit (pdf)

Download

Want support beyond a single session? Explore organization-sponsored coaching. 

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