Speaking
Talks for rooms that want a real read.
Twenty years of operating. Brand, packaging, retail, and challenger thinking — direct, opinionated, working. No deck disease, no motivational arc, no "five trends to watch." One sharp argument and the examples that earned it.
The rooms I'm built for. And the ones I'm not.
I work best in rooms that want the operator version, not the keynote version. Founder summits, CPG conferences, retail innovation events, packaging and design culture rooms, marketing leadership offsites, and private brand teams who need an outside read before a big decision.
I skip the generic "leadership" circuit, motivational arcs, and five-person panels — you cannot say anything sharp in five minutes, and I am not interested in pretending otherwise.
Four arguments. Pick the one that fits the room.
Each of these is a working talk built around a real argument I have made in front of brand teams, founders, and investors. I am happy to remix a hybrid for a specific audience — but I will not change the underlying claim to fit the booker's comfort zone.
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Packaging is media. (You've already paid for it.)
Most CPG founders pour budget into paid demand to fix what is actually a packaging problem. A working talk on why the package is the most under-leveraged growth lever a brand owns — and how to read whether yours is pulling its weight at shelf in three seconds.
Best fit
CPG conferences, retail innovation summits, founder offsites, in-house brand teams.
Formats
- Keynote · 30–45 min
- Workshop · 90 min
- Private brand-team session
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Consensus kills demand.
The brands that move a category are not the ones everyone in the room agreed with. They are the ones half the room would have rejected. A talk on why sharpness, not safety, is the only durable growth strategy — and how a founder-led brand gets back to a decision the cautious version of itself cannot survive.
Best fit
Founder summits, brand strategy conferences, marketing leadership events, growth conferences.
Formats
- Keynote · 30–45 min
- Fireside · 30–45 min
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How brands earn the shelf.
The seam between brand and retail is where most launches die. A talk on the three jobs a package has to do at shelf in three seconds, what most founders mis-budget against, and what to do when you are up against the category leader's planogram with a quarter of the spend.
Best fit
CPG conferences, beverage and RTD summits, retail innovation events, working sessions for brand teams ahead of a launch.
Formats
- Keynote · 30–45 min
- Working session · 90 min
- Panel
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The Modern Brand OS.
Gen-Z is rewriting the rules of attention, meaning, and loyalty in every category at once. A talk on eleven operating principles for brands trying to behave bigger than they spend in a world where the old playbook is now expensive to run.
Best fit
Design conferences, brand strategy events, founder education, agency leadership offsites.
Formats
- Keynote · 45–60 min
- Workshop · 90–120 min
The version of the talk that everyone in the prep call agreed with is the one that nobody remembers. Same rule as brand.
— Noah Barlow
Pick the shape that fits the goal.
A keynote is not always the right move. A workshop usually outperforms a keynote for a working team. A fireside lands harder than a keynote when the audience already knows the territory. Open to all five; happy to recommend the right one once I see the audience and the goal.
Keynote
Stage time. One sharp argument, real-world examples from twenty years of operating, three takeaways the audience can use Monday.
Fireside / interview
On stage with a host. Best for rooms where the audience already knows the topic and wants the operator perspective, not the 101.
Workshop
Small-group working session. Includes a custom diagnostic tied to the talk topic — your audience leaves with a scored read on their own brand, not just inspiration.
Panel
For industry summits where you want a sharp counter-position on stage with peers. Best when the panel is three voices or fewer.
Private brand-team session
In-house at the company. Best when you want the team to leave with a specific decision made, not just an idea floated. Often booked alongside an advisory engagement.
Bring me the room
Tell me the audience. I'll tell you the talk.
Send the basics. I will personally reply within 48 hours with a read on whether there is a fit, a recommended format, and a confirmation on whether dates work. No agent layer, no "speaker bureau" rep.
Thanks — that's in.
I'll personally reply within 48 hours with a read on whether there's a fit, a format recommendation, and a confirmation on dates.
Or just email me
Skip the form.
Subject line "Speaking inquiry" and the basics — audience, date, format you're considering. Three sentences beats thirty fields.
Also
Based in Toronto
Open to travel. Selective on calendar.
Roughly 6–10 speaking dates per year. Strong preference for events where I can also have one or two real working sessions with founders or brand teams in the same trip.