A keynote that changes how leaders think about the people they lead.
Not theory. Not inspiration-without-application. A practitioner's perspective that leaves audiences with something to actually do.
Keith Laplante has spent more than thirty-five years working with leaders and organizations navigating the most difficult thing any institution can attempt: genuine, lasting change. He's led from the inside, as an executive at TD Waterhouse, BMO Financial Group, and HomeEquity Bank. He's advised from the outside, at Accenture's Canada Innovation Hub, ExperiencePoint, and The Refinery Leadership Partners. And he's translated that experience into leadership programs delivered at Harvard, Duke, and Stanford, and to more than 7,000 leaders worldwide.
His keynotes are built on what he's actually seen, not what the research says should happen in theory.
Signature Keynotes
The keynote version of the upcoming book
Best for: Leadership conferences, HR and people leadership summits, organizational change and transformation events
What If "They" Aren't the Problem?
The most common frustration in organizational leadership is this: you introduce something new (a system, a process, a structure, a way of working) and your people just won't get on board. The initiative made sense. The case was solid. And yet here you are, managing resistance you didn't expect.
This keynote reframes the question. It's not about overcoming resistance. It's about understanding where resistance actually comes from, and what leaders do (and don't do) that either shortens the distance to genuine commitment or makes it longer.
Audiences leave with:
- A new model for understanding human resistance to change
- The compliance vs. commitment distinction and why it matters
- Three things leaders can do differently starting immediately
For organizations mid-transformation
Best for: Executive leadership events, leadership team off-sites, corporate transformation programs
From Compliance to Commitment
There's a version of leadership that gets people to do what they're asked. And there's a version that gets people to genuinely believe in what they're doing. These are not the same thing, and the difference between them shows up in every metric that matters: retention, performance, innovation, and the ability to sustain change over time.
This keynote is for senior leadership teams that are past the launch of a change initiative and wondering why the energy isn't quite there. It diagnoses the problem and offers a practical framework for closing the gap.
Leadership's defining challenge
Best for: Technology leadership events, innovation summits, senior leadership conferences
The Human Side of AI Adoption
Every organization is navigating some version of the same question right now: how do we adopt AI in a way that actually works? Most are approaching it as a technology problem. It isn't. It's a leadership problem, specifically the same human change leadership challenge that's always determined whether transformation efforts succeed or fail.
This keynote applies the principles of human-centred change leadership to the AI adoption challenge: how to address the fear of replacement honestly, how to involve people in shaping the change rather than announcing it at them, and how to move from compliance (using the tool because they have to) to commitment (using it because they believe in it).
For organizations rebuilding their relationship with innovation
Best for: Innovation leadership events, corporate strategy off-sites, technology and product leadership audiences
Innovation as a Mindset, Not an Event
Most organizations have a relationship with innovation. They tried design thinking, ran the workshops, got mixed results, and pulled back to the safer ground of continuous improvement. That's not wrong. It's just incomplete. Continuous improvement keeps your current offering competitive. It doesn't protect you from becoming irrelevant.
This keynote names the gap directly. The companies that get innovation right don't treat it as a project or a methodology to install. They build the habits of creative thinkers into the way their people work every day. That's the difference between knowing what design thinking is and actually thinking like an innovator.
Let's talk about your event.
If you're planning a leadership conference, a corporate event, or an executive program and you're looking for a keynote that goes beyond the usual, reach out. I'm happy to have a conversation about fit before anything formal.
I'm also open to arrangements with speakers bureaus and event management partners. Note that in the inquiry form below.