Your audience will leave different. Not just inspired — different
Most keynotes produce a great hour and no lasting change. Mine are designed to produce a measurable shift in how your people think about creative risk, how they move ideas forward, and what they’re willing to try next.
Whether it’s a closing keynote for 400 HR professionals or an interactive breakout for 30 engineers, every session is built for the audience in front of you — not adapted from a template. And the shift that starts on stage has somewhere to go when Monday morning arrives.
96% of attendees would see me again. One room of skeptical researchers turned into six engagements in six months. That’s not energy. That’s a practice.
Speaking Clips
Come with your event details. Leave with a clear recommendation
— and an honest read on whether I'm the right fit.
Programs
Built for the analytical teams who are convinced they’re not creative.
That’s most teams. And it’s exactly who these programs are designed for.
Every session is built on the Create the Impossible™ framework and customized for your audience, your theme, and your time slot. All formats available in person and virtually, and designed for audiences of 25 to 400+.
SIGNATURE KEYNOTE – 20 TO 90 MINUTES
Creating the Impossible:
Unleashing Innovation Through Play,
Imperfection, and Rapid Learning
"The innovation keynote for teams who are
convinced they’re not creative — which is most teams."
Your most analytical, skeptical people are also your biggest untapped innovation asset. This keynote gives them a direct experience of what innovation as a practice actually feels like — not a talk about creativity, but a session that rewires how they think about it.
Using the Create the Impossible™ framework (Play Hard → Make Crap → Learn Fast), participants move through a structured experience that breaks the perfectionism cycle, builds psychological safety in real time, and leaves them with tools they can use the same week. Delivered through storytelling, interactive moments, and hands-on exercises that work at any scale.
Every participant receives a copy of Innovation at Work — so the shift that starts on stage has a practice to come home to.
Tailored for: tech organizations, HR and people teams, project management professionals, engineering and analytical teams, general leadership audiences.
This program is perfect for:
Your organization has an innovation mandate but no shared practice for actually executing it
Your most analytical, skeptical teams are the ones who need to think differently — and you need an approach that won’t make them roll their eyes
You’ve tried workshops before and watched the energy evaporate by the following Monday
You need a keynote that does more than inspire — one that changes how people actually work
Your audience will leave with:
A concrete, three-step framework for innovation they can apply immediately — no creative background required
Practical tools to break the perfectionism and risk-aversion that stalls ideas before they ever leave someone’s head
A shared language for innovation that makes it easier for teams to move faster together
Renewed confidence that creativity isn’t a personality trait — it’s a practice, and they already have what it takes
A reframe of “failure” as usable data — so dead ends become direction, not a reason to stop
“I could see the breakthroughs happening — it was ELECTRIC! Her approach proves that creative innovation activities aren't 'too woo woo' for analytical teams.”
– Marie Spark, MBA, PMP
Strategic Advisor & Thought Leader, PMI SF Bay Area
INTERACTIVE SESSION – 45 TO 90 MINUTES
Playing With Possibility:
How Your Team Can Partner With AI Without Losing the Human Touch
“80% of participants shift their relationship with AI — from anxiety to active experimentation — in a single session.”
Your team probably already has AI tools. Getting them to actually use those tools — with confidence, not anxiety — is a different problem.
This session helps teams reframe AI as a creative collaborator rather than a threat, through hands-on experiments that make the insight visceral, not theoretical. Participants don’t just hear about human-AI collaboration. They experience it, debrief it, and leave with a concrete plan to experiment in their own work within the next seven days.
Designed for the analytical professionals who don’t see themselves as creative — and who are quietly most at risk of being left behind by AI adoption. Highly scalable: delivered successfully for audiences of 125+.
Also available as: AI-Human Creative Alliance — alternate framing for technical or engineering audiences.
This program is perfect for:
Your team is navigating AI adoption and the anxiety — or resistance — that comes with it
You need your people to experiment with AI in their actual work, not just sit through another webinar about it
Your analytical professionals’ self-story (“I’m not creative”) is limiting what they’ll try
You want measurable behavior change, not just a more optimistic mood about AI
Your audience will leave with:
A practical, human-first framework for partnering with AI — without losing the judgment, voice, and instincts that make them good at their jobs
A concrete experimentation plan they can act on within seven days
Tools to move from AI anxiety to active, low-stakes exploration
The ability to make imperfect things on purpose — which turns out to be exactly how you learn faster than the technology
A reframe of “what AI can’t replace” that’s grounding rather than defensive — and motivating rather than scary
“Her interactive session was a standout — equal parts engaging, thought-provoking, and fun. The feedback from attendees was exceptional, with many describing it as one of their favorite sessions of the day.”
– Anup (Andy) Deshpande
Chief Governance Officer — PMI SF Bay Area
INTERACTIVE SESSION – 45 TO 90 MINUTES
Communicating for Influence™:
A Taste of the Toolkit
“The last-mile problem: your team's best thinking isn't getting heard. This session fixes that.”
You can’t build an innovation culture if brilliant ideas die somewhere between the person who has them and the decision-maker who needs to hear them. This session solves that problem — using improv-based methods that shift communication behavior faster than traditional training, with results that show up the same week.
One engagement with a skeptical Meta UX research team turned into six engagements across their organization over six months, and a manager who called it “an absolute gift.” Not because the content was good — because the behavior actually changed.
Playful, high-energy, and immediately practical. Scalable for large groups.
This program is perfect for:
Your team does important work that isn't getting the traction, funding, or buy-in it deserves
Brilliant ideas are dying somewhere between the person who has them and the decision-maker who needs to hear them
You have researchers, analysts, or technical experts who struggle to communicate across functions — not because they’re not smart, but because no one ever taught them how
You need behavior change that shows up in real work, not just better performance on a training exercise
Your audience will leave with:
A practical toolkit for communicating complex ideas clearly — to any audience, at any level
Improv-based techniques that shift communication behavior faster than traditional training, with results that show up the same week
Strategies for building the courage to share imperfect thinking — which is what actually gets ideas moving
Tools for understanding and adapting to different audiences, so ideas land with the people who have the power to act on them
A shared communication framework that makes cross-functional collaboration faster and less frustrating for the whole team
“It’s been amazing to watch them learn new tricks and generate a new, shared vocabulary… also, from a team dynamic standpoint, it’s been incredibly empowering as a manager to watch the team bond. It’s been an absolute gift and an amazing experience — I would highly recommend this to anyone, any manager, any group, anywhere.”
– Claire Menke
Head of Research, Facebook
Available for conferences, association events, corporate all-hands, and internal leadership summits — in person and virtual.
Looking for something deeper than a single session? The same framework that powers these programs can be built into a 90-day engagement or year-long culture transformation.
What the Data Shows
These aren’t anecdotes. They’re post-session survey results — the kind of numbers that make a strong case internally when you’re proposing a speaker to your leadership team.
Case Study: NHRMA 2025 — Creating the Impossible
Closing keynote, ~400 attendees
“Her closing keynote was one of the most engaging sessions I’ve attended. She left the room inspired to take action, take risks, and lead with curiosity.”
– Kayla Svinicki, SHRM-CP
HR Manager, Alaska Commercial Operations
Case Study: NRV SHRM — Playing With Possibility
A room full of HR professionals. One session. Measurable shift.
“Attendees walked away not only better informed, but also energized and motivated. Her ability to connect with the audience, provide clarity, and inspire new ways of thinking made a lasting impression on our group.”
– Jermanii Robinson
President Elect / Programs Chair — NRV SHRM
Case Study: PMI SF Bay Area —
Thriving with Human + AI Creativity
125 project managers. The most analytical room you can
imagine.
“Her session stood out as a masterclass in creative facilitation — leveraging play, trust-building, and purposeful engagement in a way that resonated deeply with our audience of project professionals. She reminded us that creativity is not fluff but a true leadership capability.”
– Chris Petapermal
Enterprise Transformation Leader, PMI SF Bay Area
“I could see the breakthroughs happening — it was ELECTRIC! Her approach proves that creative innovation activities aren't ‘too woo woo’ for analytical teams.”
– Marie Spark, MBA, PMP
Strategic Advisor & Thought Leader, PMI SF Bay Area
Virtual? Absolutely.
Every program I deliver works in person and virtually — and during the pandemic I specialized in designing virtual instructor-led trainings for some well-known brands. I’ve facilitated high-energy, fully participatory sessions for distributed teams and virtual conferences with the same results: a room that feels genuinely alive, even through a screen.
Virtual is different, but if you’re going that way, interactive is absolutely the way to go, and I’d love to chat with you about how I can support you.
What audiences say
Ready to bring this to your audience?
Let's talk about your event, your audience, and which program would move the needle most. I'll tell you honestly if I'm the right fit.
Planning a conference or association event? Everything you need to evaluate, book, and brief me is on the Meeting Professionals page → — including downloadable resources, logistics details, and what to expect when we work together.
Prefer to send a note first? Use the contact form.
Looking for a longer engagement? See consulting options →
Contact Melissa
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