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Blaire Palmer - Future of Leadership Keynote Speaker & Author of Punks in Suits, Keynote Speaker

Blaire Palmer

Blaire Palmer Future of Leadership Keynote Speaker & Author of Punks in Suits

Blaire Palmer - Future of Leadership Keynote Speaker & Author of Punks in Suits, Keynote Speaker
Blaire Palmer's Biography

Blaire Palmer is a keynote speaker, executive coach and author on the future of leadership, helping organisations lead the workplace reformation. She brings more than two decades of experience coaching boards and senior leaders, and challenges audiences to think more critically about the idea of work and leadership itself. As a keynote speaker, Blaire uses a bold and provocative perspective to bust myths about what it means to lead, and shows today's leaders how to inspire their teams to take on the challenges of constantly changing times. Audiences leave with fresh ideas and the confidence to rethink their approach to work. Blaire spent a decade as one of the youngest female producers on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, where she became incr

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Blaire Palmer Keynote Topics
Punks in Suits: How to Lead the Workplace Reformation by Harnessing Personal Leadership

The business environment has never been more challenging, and senior leaders are the ones bearing the pressure and responsibility. Trust in authority figures is low. But what if every employee and contributor in an organisation could become a leader?

Disrupting the Victorian model of work (the hierarchy, the silos, the risk aversion and being busy over being productive) may be the shot in the arm a team needs to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Blaire shows organisations how to empower individuals to go beyond being team players and build a culture of Personal Leadership: motivated, engaged and collaborative, even in times of change.

Key takeaways:

  • Why it is no longer enough to have leadership at the top
  • How every contributor to an organisation can be their own best leader
  • How to create a collaborative approach to disruption and challenges
  • The link between empowered employees and loyal employees
  • How individuals can understand their own personal contribution within an infrastructure
  • How to do away with egos in senior management so that everyone can do their best work

 

Ideal audience: Organisations that have tried everything to create an energised workforce and are ready to do something different.


A Brilliant Gamble: Busting the Myths of Change

Change is a constant. New challenges, from generative AI to a cost of living and supply crisis, arrive every day. Teams that are not ready to meet this future head-on will struggle in a demanding work landscape.

Technology is revolutionising work, but that only makes people a more valuable asset. Unless you understand people, you won't know what to do with technology. Blaire challenges audiences to rethink their assumptions about technology, people and the role of the leader in creating organisations that are fit for the future.

Key takeaways:

  • What teams need in order to thrive in uncertainty
  • The challenges and opportunities presented by disruptive technology
  • How to create a leadership culture that can weather a constantly changing workplace

 

Ideal audience: Organisations that often find themselves on the back foot when new challenges arise.


Seeking Expansiveness: Embracing Individuality

Inclusion is a buzzword, but what does it mean to your organisation? If it ends at the hiring stage, you are meeting a quota rather than building thriving, loyal, motivated teams.

Inclusion has to be about every individual bringing the unique parts of themselves to work, from Gen Z hires to women in midlife and colleagues from different cultures. Blaire draws on her own experience of different seasons of working life, and addresses the practical challenges of hybrid working and leading a distributed team.

Key takeaways:

  • How to approach diversity and inclusion as a gift to a workplace
  • How to meet people in the team in their uniqueness
  • How to create a culture that prioritises wellness in exchange for people doing their best work

 

Ideal audience: Organisations that want inclusion, hybrid working and wellbeing to translate into better work.

Blaire Palmer
Blaire Palmer's Biography

Blaire Palmer is a keynote speaker, executive coach and author on the future of leadership, helping organisations lead the workplace reformation. She brings more than two decades of experience coaching boards and senior leaders, and challenges audiences to think more critically about the idea of work and leadership itself.

As a keynote speaker, Blaire uses a bold and provocative perspective to bust myths about what it means to lead, and shows today's leaders how to inspire their teams to take on the challenges of constantly changing times. Audiences leave with fresh ideas and the confidence to rethink their approach to work.

Blaire spent a decade as one of the youngest female producers on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, where she became increasingly fascinated by leadership. She left to train as one of Europe's first corporate coaches and started her own company to help businesses evolve for the new century.

Over the last 25 years she has worked with organisations including Mattel, Airbus, Roche Pharmaceuticals, GSK, the FA, Havas Lynx, DX, Travis Perkins, the BBC and Rexel.

Blaire helps leaders make sense of how generative AI, hybrid working, the long tail of the pandemic, a growing understanding of mental health, the rising cost of living and supply, and global unrest have combined to create a new crisis in the workforce, and she proposes practical responses for organisations whose people, needs and expectations have changed substantially in the past few years.

She is the author of four books on leadership and work:

  • Punks in Suits: How to Lead the Workplace Reformation (Rethink Press, 2024)
  • What's Wrong with Work? The 5 Frustrations of Work and How to Fix Them for Good (Wiley, 2010)
  • The Recipe for Success: What Really Successful People Do and How You Can Do It Too (A&C Black, 2009)
  • The Hyper-Creative Personality: How to Focus Your Ideas and Become the Most Successful Person You Know (New Holland, 2007)

 

Punks in Suits is a rallying cry for organisations to ask uncomfortable questions about how they work, and whether their approach is still fit for purpose in today's world.

Blaire Palmer is ready to inspire your teams!
To invite this speaker:

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Blaire Palmer testimonials

STEVE HARDY

FORMER CEO, AXA PERSONAL LINES.

"I ENGAGED BLAIRE TO HELP ME IN A PROGRAMME TO TRANSFORM THE CULTURE AT AXA PERSONAL LINES. THE WHOLE PROCESS WAS INCREDIBLY INTENSIVE, TOUCHED OVER 2,000 EMPLOYEES AND TOOK AROUND A YEAR TO COMPLETE. SUCCESS WAS DEFINITELY ACHIEVED AS WE DEFINITELY MOVED THE CULTURE FROM THREE DISPARATE PARTS TO ONE EMPOWERED TEAM. I DON’T THINK WE WOULD HAVE ACHIEVED THE SUCCESS WE DID WITHOUT THE DETERMINED, CONSISTENT, HONEST AND CHALLENGING SUPPORT THAT BLAIRE AND HER TEAM BROUGHT TO THE PROJECT."

NICOLE HARDAKER

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME COORDINATOR (EAIE)

"BLAIRE PALMER WAS EVERYTHING THE EAIE WANTED IN A LEADERSHIP SPEAKER. IN ONLY 45 MINUTES SHE WAS ABLE TO TURN EVERYONE’S PERCEPTIONS OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT ON ITS HEAD. BLAIRE WAS EXTREMELY RELEVANT AND WAS ABLE TO CLEARLY AND SIMPLY GET HER MESSAGE ACROSS TO OUR INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE. SHE IS A MUST HAVE FOR ANY CONFERENCE! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!"

PETAR CVETKOVIC

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DX GROUP

"BLAIRE'S PRESENTATION WAS INSPIRING, RELEVANT, FRESH AND FUN. THERE WAS A GREAT SENSE OF COLLABORATION AT OUR TOP 100 LEADERS MEETING TODAY AND THAT WAS, IN NO SMALL WAY, DOWN TO THE THOUGHT-PROVOKING MESSAGES AND ENTHUSIASM THAT BLAIRE BROUGHT TO THE EVENT. JUST WHAT WE NEEDED."

KOSTA CHRISTOFI

SANTANDER UK

"BLAIRE OFFERS A WEALTH OF EXPERIENCE IN HER FIELD, ALL RELEVANT TO TODAYS BUSINESS DEMANDS, AND COUPLED WITH AN ENGAGING, WARM AND THOUGHT- PROVOKING DELIVERY STYLE, HAS GIVEN ME AND MY COLLEAGUES SOME VALUABLE INSIGHTS AND ACTIONS TO TAKE AND MAKE A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE!"

DELEGATE

WELSH ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME

"I FEEL THAT UNDERTAKING THIS PROGRAMME HAS GREATLY IMPROVED MY PERFORMANCE. I WISH I COULD HAVE DONE THIS TWENTY YEARS AGO! I HAVE MET AND STILL MEET WITH COLLEAGUES THAT I HAVE ESTABLISHED A PROFESSIONAL BOND WITH, WHO I KNOW I CAN ALWAYS CALL UPON TO SHARE IDEAS AND OPINIONS"

BRUNO MEIJER

AIRBUS

"A VERY ENERGIZING, FRESH, RELEVANT EVEN PROVOKING BUT STILL ENTHUSIASTIC AND POSITIVE PRESENTATION. A WARM, SHARED SHOW BASED ON STRONG EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD. A REAL INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER!"

DAIMA IRIS BOUDY GINIEBRA

CRG

"I DEEPLY BELIEVE BLAIRE HAS A GIFT AND IT IS TO INSPIRE PEOPLE AND MAKE THEM BELIEVE THEY ARE VALUED AND UNIQUE. BLAIRE TRANSFERS GOOD AND POSITIVE ENERGY THAT MAKE YOU FEEL YOUR WORTH. BLAIRE IS MAGICAL! THANK YOU BLAIRE FOR EVERYTHING PLEASE, KEEP INSPIRING PEOPLE AND BEING A ''BUSINESS MUSE!''

DAVID PLESTER

BABCOCK INTERNATIONAL

"WORKING WITH BLAIRE AND HER TEAM AS OUR BUSINESS HAS GROWN AND REPOSITIONED ITSELF TO BECOME A LEADING PROVIDER OF SUPPORT IN BUILT ASSET MANAGEMENT, HAS HELPED US BECOME CLEAR ABOUT OUR DIRECTION AND HOW TO OPERATE AS A SINGLE UNIT. OUR MANAGEMENT TEAM I BELIEVE HAVE BENEFITTED HUGELY FROM BLAIRE’S SUPPORT, USING A SERIES OF WORKSHOPS WE THOUGHT HARD ABOUT WHAT WE WERE HERE TO DO AND HOW WE WERE GOING TO DO IT. THE RESULTS WERE IMMEDIATE FOR US AS A TEAM AND FOR THE BUSINESS."

Luke Nichols

Editor, edie.net (sponsors of Sustainability Live)

Blaire's interactive and engaging session on behaviour change was the perfect fit for our conference. Her fascination with leadership and change shone through and she presented our audience with an array of real take-home advice that resonated with everyone in the room.

Ian Gregory

Head of Learning and Development, Foreign & Commonwealth Office

Blaire Palmer gave insight to the core of what it takes to be a leader today. Blaire brought a sense of realism, humour and practicality to an energising session, leaving a deep impression on the audience.

Melanie Williams

VP Human Resources EMEA, McCormick UK Ltd

Blaire captivated our audience in presenting her experience and advice with regard to empowering McCormick's staff to succeed and develop. She was upbeat, engaging and gave us confidence that we are on the right journey with regard to diversity in our company.

Sarah Scarth

Founder, Resonate Events

Blaire has done a fantastic job. Not only does she engage the crowd during the live event, she's also really got involved in tweaking the actual event design. She really has been a joy to work with. We would not hesitate to work with her again.

Frequently Asked Questions About
Blaire Palmer

Blaire Palmer speaks on themes connected to their work as Future of Leadership, Keynote speaker | Organisational culture and leadership specialist. Contact us for current keynote titles.

Contact Speaker Agency UK through speakeragency.co.uk/contact. We will discuss your event's objectives, audience and timing, then tailor Blaire Palmer's session to fit.

Blaire Palmer is available for corporate conferences, leadership events, award ceremonies, internal team days and online sessions, in the UK and internationally.

Yes. Blaire Palmer's sessions work well for leadership away-days, organisational development and staff training, and can be adapted to your team's goals.

Speaking fees vary depending on event type, audience size, location and format (keynote, panel or workshop). Contact Speaker Agency UK for a personalised quote for Blaire Palmer.

Blaire Palmer typically delivers 30 to 60 minute keynotes with optional audience Q&A, and can tailor the timing or run a longer workshop format to suit your event.

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