The best talks don't just inform. They shift something.
After 15 years working inside hundreds of businesses — as a strategist, an agency owner, a framework builder, team member, and someone who has sat with business owners in their hardest seasons — I bring a perspective that's grounded in real experience, not theory.
My talks are honest, practical, and deliberately uncomfortable in the best way. I don't tell people what they want to hear. I tell them what they need to hear — and give them a framework to act on it.
Whether you need a keynote that opens a conversation, a workshop that changes one, or a podcast episode your listeners talk about for weeks — I'm available to speak on the topics that matter most to the people you serve.
Three talks. Three conversations worth having.
Each talk is available as a keynote, a workshop, or a panel conversation — and can be tailored to your audience, your event, and the specific outcome you're looking for.
The Other Side of Hard.
On resilience — and why most conversations about it are missing the point.
Resilience has become a buzzword. It's on coffee mugs and conference slides. And most of what gets said about it is some version of 'push through' dressed up in better language.
This talk goes somewhere different. It's about what resilience actually looks like in practice — not as a personality trait you either have or don't, but as a capacity you build deliberately, season by season, by making different choices about how you structure your work and your life.
Karine draws on nearly 15 years of working with business owners through their hardest seasons — and her own — to offer a framework for resilience that's honest, specific, and immediately actionable. Not inspiration.
Business owners, founders, corporate teams, leadership conferences, women in business events
→ A reframe of what resilience actually is — and isn't
→ A practical framework for building it deliberately rather than hoping for it
→ Honest language for the conversations they've been having privately but not publicly
Do Less. Achieve More.
On the counterintuitive truth about productivity, priorities, and what actually moves the needle.
Most business leaders are busy with the wrong things. Not because they're undisciplined — but because nobody has ever helped them get honest about what actually matters and given them permission to let the rest go.
This talk is a direct challenge to the cult of busy. It introduces the Aim pillar of the VACAY framework — and shows audiences how to identify the two or three things that will move the needle most, cut everything that competes with them, and build the kind of momentum that doesn't require working harder. Just working on the right things.
Equal parts challenge and relief — and always followed by the question: 'Why did no one tell me this sooner?'
Business owners, entrepreneurs, corporate teams, productivity and leadership conferences
→ A clear process for identifying what actually matters — and what's just noise
→ The permission to let go of the things that feel important but aren't
→ A practical starting point they can use before they leave the room
It's Not the Work.
A new lens on burnout — and an honest look at what's actually going on.
Burnout is one of the most talked-about topics in business right now. And most of the conversation is missing something important.
We live in a noisy world. And when we let all of it in — the news, the notifications, the relationships that need attention, the friendships that have quietly frayed — our nervous systems pay the price. When our work suffers and our personal lives become difficult to navigate, we assume the work is the cause. But that's not always what's happening.
Burnout isn't always a work problem. It's often a whole-life problem that's showing up at work. And if we only treat the symptom — taking a break, setting better hours, reorganising the calendar — we'll be back in the same place within a season.
This talk offers a different lens. One built from years of conversations with business owners who were 'burnt out' — and who, with the right questions, discovered that the work was rarely the real culprit. The world had got loud. The boundaries had got thin. The things that fill a person back up had quietly been crowded out.
It's an honest, slightly uncomfortable, and ultimately freeing conversation about where burnout really comes from — and what it actually takes to move through it.
Business owners, corporate leadership teams, HR conferences, wellness events, women in leadership
→ A new framework for understanding burnout that goes beyond the workplace
→ Honest questions to identify what's actually draining them
→ A starting point for addressing the whole picture — not just the work
Something bespoke?
If you're looking for something that doesn't quite fit a signature talk — a conversation built specifically around your audience, your theme, or a question your community is sitting with — I'm always open to creating something together.
My areas of expertise include strategic thinking and business planning, the VACAY framework and seasonal business practice, resilience and intentional leadership, burnout and the whole-life picture, and the art of doing less to achieve more.
If you have a brief, a theme, or even just an instinct that I'm the right voice for your room — reach out. The best talks often start with a conversation.
How I speak.
Available for a range of formats — in-person and virtual:
30–60 minutes · Conferences, corporate events, leadership summits
90 minutes–half day · Team sessions, corporate offsites, group events
Moderated or as panellist · Industry events, conferences
Interview format · Business, leadership, strategy, wellness topics
Get me in your room.
Tell me about your event, your audience, and what you're hoping the conversation will give them.
I'll take it from there.
Take a moment to connect and I'll will be in touch within two business days.