Public speaking, private corporate sessions, workshops, multi-day offsites. If it's about helping teams work better (and produce better work), I'm in.

Despite my best attempts to standardize things and make life easy for myself, I make a custom talk for every engagement. I'd rather build something specific to your audience and your moment than recycle a deck — and I think the talks are better for it. Below you'll find some themes that I keep returning to.

If you want me to come build something for your audience, get in touch. For event materials, here's the speaker profile (PDF) and a high-res headshot.

Themes

AI as an organizational stress test

AI widens existing gaps between growing firms on the frontier, and everyone else. The firms that thrive in the next decade will be the ones where permission is structural. Past: Permission to Move, SupernovaFest 2026, Designing for Autonomy (2014); Creating the Conditions (corporate retreat, 2017).

Teams as the fundamental unit

Most corporate performance problems that seem like they're about effort or ability are actually problems of how work is grouped, how authority moves, and whether the team actually exists in any structural sense or is just a recurring calendar invite. Past: Three Unexpected Practices for Better Productivity (MillerCoors 2018); Smaller is Better (Web 2.0 NYC 2010).

Why most re-orgs fail

Why matrix orgs are doomed, why role clarity is a trap, why the re-org-every-six-months cycle is a symptom rather than a fix...and what to do instead. Past: The Founding Flaw of Matrix Organizing (Zappi 2023); The New Model for Scaling a Company (Percolate Transition 2015).

Past Audiences

Bayer, Bloomin' Brands, Blue Shield of California, Boeing, Dropbox, Etsy, GE Capital, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Google, Husqvarna, IDEO, MillerCoors, MunichRe, Ogilvy, PepsiCo, Sonic.

Selected Talks

2026 • Permission to Move (SupernovaFest) Why the organizations that win with AI won't be the ones with the best models, but the ones where permission is baked into the system. Read the talk →

2023 • The Founding Flaw of Matrix Organizing (Zappi podcast) On the old bug inside matrix structures — the one that won't go away no matter how many times we try to redesign around it. Listen / read →

2018 • Three Unexpected Practices for Better Productivity (MillerCoors HR offsite) Working with HR leaders at a large brewer on what it actually takes to make teaming work inside a big organization. Deck and video →

2017 • Creating the Conditions (private corporate retreat) A retreat day organized around three stories, three games, and three new practices. Writeup →

2017 • On Organizational Learning (YCN, London) A short interview with YCN on how we help organizations learn. Watch →

2015 • The New Model for Scaling a Company Three old technologies — rule of law, market forces, transparency — and seven performance criteria: purpose, fitness, vitality, fairness, power, connection, safety. Read →

2014 • Designing for Autonomy On purposeful autonomy as the main goal of organizing. Read →

2010 • Smaller is Better (Web 2.0 NYC, with Alex) An early take on why small teams outperform — and why the structures around them usually don't. Read →

Testimonials

• "One of the leaders of the division came up to me after the chat and thanked me for bringing you in. Your first two slides were mind-blowing, and the stories touched him to the core. Your willingness and ability to work with us so flexibly and responsively meant a great deal."
• "While you have specific frameworks you use to work, I felt like the way you created the workshops was very much based on the problem we were trying to solve and the team in the room. It wasn’t ‘off the shelf’ but really specific to the job to be done."
• "Clay killed it! The audience was enthralled and totally engaged. Plus, his presentation style is very confident and at ease, which conveys a nice air of expertise combined with approachability."
• "Clay’s talk gave both a professional in-depth look into the current developments and an entertaining overview of what might be the future. He helped us break with stereotyped thinking and took us to a higher level of leadership."
• "To an audience from diverse industries where the general concept of the ‘Sharing Economy’ was relatively abstract, Clay was able to immediately bring relevance to the discussion. The practical examples and interactive workout sessions ensured that the delegates could relate the implications and opportunities of the Sharing Economy in the context of their business as well as open their mind to new opportunities to maintain and create competitive advantage."
• "As a strategy leader for hundreds of brands across the globe, I need partners that can understand and navigate massive complexity, and deliver simple, executable solutions. Clay does just that, and does it fast."

Book a Session

The fastest way to get me on a stage is to reach out directly. Tell me about your audience, the problem you're trying to address, and a rough date, I'll come back with whether a keynote, a workshop, or something in between is the right fit.