MagicMakers Institute logo with stars design.

Where Insight Becomes Inspiration

“When you design your business around the
customer—and empower employees as your
most valuable strategic asset—you don’t just
create better experiences. You create enduring
advantage.”

Cal Almaguer & Rob Mauldin
Founders, MagicMakers® Group

The MagicMakers® Institute is the leadership development, speaking, and organizational learning arm of the MagicMakers® Group—delivering keynote speeches, executive workshops, and creativity experiences focused on customer experience, employee engagement, leadership, and culture. Built by former long-tenured Disney executives and world-class subject-matter experts, the Institute delivers unforgettable keynotes, panels, workshops, and ideation sessions that help organizations think differently about their business.

Our point of view is simple—but powerful: when you put the customer at the center of every decision and treat employees as essential strategic assets, extraordinary results follow.

Designed for today’s fast-moving, human-centered organizations—the MagicMakers® Institute blends proven frameworks with fresh thinking to help leaders design experiences people remember, cultures people want to belong to, and results that endure.

Why This Matters Now

Man speaking into microphone, seated on chair.

Organizations today are navigating a fundamentally different reality than they were even a few years ago.

Customers are more informed, more vocal, and less forgiving. Employees are rethinking what they expect from work, leadership, and culture. At the same time, competition is no longer limited to products or price—it’s defined by experience.

In a post-pandemic world marked by workforce disruption, accelerated digital transformation, and rising expectations, leaders must:

  • Design experiences intentionally, not reactively

  • Align employee experience with brand promise

  • Equip leaders to balance performance, empathy, and accountability

  • Build cultures that inspire discretionary effort and innovation

The MagicMakers® Institute exists to help organizations rise to this moment—by turning insight into action and strategy into experiences people believe in.

People collaborating during a meeting at table.

Professional in approach. Playful in spirit. Practical by design.

Our Point of View

At the MagicMakers® Institute, we challenge leaders to rethink how their organizations create value.

We believe:

  • Customers don’t just buy products or services—they experience your organization

  • Employees are not a cost to manage, but strategic assets to develop, support, and reward

  • Great experiences happen by design, not by chance

  • Creativity and discipline work best together

  • Culture is shaped by what leaders consistently model, measure, and reinforce

When organizations intentionally align customer experience, employee experience, and business strategy, they unlock performance that competitors struggle to replicate.

Speaker addressing audience at MagicMakers event.

How We Work

Discover – We start by understanding your goals, audience, and challenges

Design – We tailor the experience to align with your strategy and culture

Deliver – We engage your audience with clarity, energy, and purpose

Activate – We leave you with tools, frameworks, and momentum

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Who We Serve

Our methodology is industry-agnostic and designed to adapt to the unique needs of any organization. We successfully apply the same core principles across a wide range of sectors, including:

  • Healthcare

  • Financial Services

  • Retail & Consumer Brands

  • Hospitality & Travel

  • Technology

  • Education

  • Government & Non-Profits

From frontline teams to C-suite leaders, our experiences are built to meet people where they are—and move organizations forward with practical, scalable impact.

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Insights from Real Practitioners

Signature Keynotes

Leadership Keynotes | Customer Experience | Culture & Strategy
High-impact, story-driven presentations that energize audiences and reframe how they think about leadership, culture, innovation, and customer experience.

Ideal for: Conferences, leadership summits, annual meetings, and executive offsites

Popular Topics Include:

  • The Art & Science of World-Class Experience Design

  • Leadership Lessons from Inside Disney

  • Culture by Design (Not by Accident)

  • Creativity as a Business Strategy

  • Operational Excellence Without Killing the Magic

  • Innovation at Scale

Each keynote is customizable to your industry, audience, and strategic goals.

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Man in floral shirt holding microphone, waving.

Executive Panels & Fireside Chats

Thought Leadership Panels | Executive Insight | Industry Perspectives
Dynamic, moderated discussions featuring MagicMakers® experts—many with decades of Disney leadership experience—who share candid insights, real-world stories, and practical lessons learned.

Formats include:

  • Executive panels

  • Fireside chats

  • Moderated Q&A sessions

Best for: Thought-leadership events, client forums, company meetings, and leadership retreats

Panel discussion at a health services conference.

Immersive Workshops

Executive Workshops | Leadership Development | Employee Experience
Hands-on, facilitated experiences that move beyond inspiration into application. Participants actively work through challenges, frameworks, and tools they can bring back to their organizations.

Workshop Themes:

  • Designing Exceptional Employee & Customer Experiences

  • Building High-Trust, High-Performance Cultures

  • Creative Problem-Solving & Innovation Labs

  • Leadership Alignment & Decision-Making

  • Storytelling for Leaders

Workshops range from 90 minutes to multi-day engagements and can be delivered in-person or virtually.

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Presentation on design thinking process with audience.

Ideation & Creativity Labs

Innovation Sessions | Creative Problem-Solving | Experience Design
Structured creativity experiences designed to unlock fresh thinking, accelerate innovation, and align teams around bold ideas.

Using proven Disney-inspired methodologies, these sessions help teams:

  • Break through creative roadblocks

  • Generate and refine new ideas

  • Align innovation with brand and strategy

  • Turn imagination into executable concepts

Perfect for strategy resets, product launches, and organizational transformation moments.

 

Meet the MagicMakers® Institute Faculty

The MagicMakers® Institute faculty includes former Disney executives and senior leaders who helped shape:

  • Global customer experience strategies

  • Iconic brand standards

  • Leadership development programs

  • Large-scale operational excellence initiatives

They don’t just study best practices—they built them, led them, and sustained them inside one of the most admired organizations in the world.

Current Offerings

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MaryBeth Crawford

  • ✧LANDS™: Strategic Communication for Leaders Who Drive Change
  • ✧Lead from Strength: Unlocking Performance Through CliftonStrengths®
  • ✧The Strengths-Based Team: From Cooperation to True Collaboration
  • ✧The Coaching Leader: Developing Leaders Who Develop Others
  • ✧Feedback That Builds: Giving and Receiving Feedback Through Strengths
  • ✧The Full Tank: The Forgotten Route to Peak Performance (Keynote)
Read Description
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Jake Poore

  • ✧Beyond the Cure - The Power of Storytelling
  • ✧Destination of Choice - Creating Loyalty by Designing World Class Patient Experiences
  • ✧The Ladder of Leadership - Turning Good Frontline Employees into Great Frontline Managers
Read Description
Smiling man with short hair and beard.

Chuck Salvo

  • ✧Culture By Design (Not By Accident)
  • ✧Mind Meld – What your employees really think
  • ✧R.A.V.E. – Building a Culture that respects and values everyone!
  • ✧Not a Robot – Humanity and Service in the Age of AI
Read Description
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Lee Kitchen

  • ✧Radical Creativity – Radical Being, Thinking, Doing, Collaborating
  • ✧Business as Unusual - Design Thinking the Disney Way
  • ✧Unlikely Collaboration – Leveraging dissimilarity for big ideas
  • ✧Purposeful Spontaneity - How Strategic Fresh Thinking Fuels Innovation
Read Description
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Theron Skees

  • ✧Leading Dynamic Teams — Harnessing “Positive Tension”
  • ✧Transforming Customers into an Audience of Advocates
  • ✧Beyond Storytelling— Narrative as Organizational Strategy
  • ✧“Solutioning”: Turning Insight into Impact
Read Description
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Joel Staley

  • ✧Creating Killer Spokespersons
  • ✧Calming the Storm
  • ✧Communications strategies to mitigate an active crisis and prevent the next one
  • ✧The Art of the Speech – Writing Powerful Speeches that Engage and Captivate
Read Description
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Barry Jacobson

  • ✧From Main Street USA to Your Street™ - Transforming your business through the “Magic” of Disney
  • ✧“Whistle While You Work” - Aligning People, Process, and Purpose While Keeping It Human
  • ✧“Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide” - Disney Quotes to Inspire, Build Culture, and Drive Operational Excellence
Read Description
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Michelle Baker

  • ✧Relentless Prioritization
  • ✧Grisilience
  • ✧Leadership That Holds Under Pressure
Read Description
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Jackie Bartoletti

  • ✧The Alchemy of Leadership: Transforming insight into alignment, and alignment into impact
  • ✧The Alchemy of Teamwork: Strengthening trust. Sharpening collaboration. Accelerating results.
  • ✧The Art of the Interview: Helping leaders turn high-stakes conversations into opportunities for clarity, credibility, and impact.
Read Description
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Diane Yarborough

  • ✧Courageous Leaders, Courageous Cultures
  • ✧Designing Culture with Intention
  • ✧Designing a Life, Not Just a Career
Read Description
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Bob Simmonds

  • ✧Company Front Porch – Creating Contact Center Magic
  • ✧You Had Me at Hello - Motivating Contact Center Agents to Surprise and Delight
Read Description
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Jenny Fishpool

  • ✧Making Data Come to Life – Why Storytelling Matters
Read Description
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Tom Hoof

  • ✧How to Play Nice with Marketing
Read Description
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Robert Marick

  • ✧The Business of Entertainment: Building Global Brand Franchises
  • ✧From Story to Revenue: Monetizing Brands Across Products and Experiences
  • ✧The Franchise Flywheel: Driving Engagement and Growth
  • ✧The Experience Economy: Turning Fans Into Lifelong Customers
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Read Description
Smiling man wearing glasses and suit jacket.

Keith Smith

  • ✧Improv Your Impact
  • ✧Navigating Change & Change Leadership
  • ✧Creating A Thriving Team
  • ✧Leadership for Transformation
Read Description

Beyond the Cure - The Power of Storytelling

Organizations known for providing world-class service are also known for their ability to tell stories and motivate others through storytelling. Most employees will not remember data, models, concepts and graphs, but when told through an engaging story, not only do they understand the concept or message, but they can retell the story to others, thus sharing the message and reinforcing your organization’s unique culture.  Amid all the chatter about big data, analytics, and evidence-based medicine, there is one fundamental truth: healthcare organizations and their team members are transformed by their stories.

Go with Jake as he takes you on a storytelling journey sharing best practices and lessons learned from organizations known for their exceptional experiences, delivered seamlessly and consistently, and guiding your leaders to develop their own stories to share.

Destination of Choice - Creating Loyalty by Designing World Class Patient Experiences

This session will illustrate the blueprints and tools needed to build a high performing healthcare team that is incredibly aligned, focused and committed to being patient-driven, whether they care directly for patients or not. As an employee, we believe that if you’re not directly taking care of a patient…you should be taking of someone who is.

  • Learn the “Language of Service” and how our words and titles affect patient experience
  • Define where loyalty comes from and learn what it takes to earn patient loyalty
  • Discover why most healthcare initiatives die and explore the infrastructure needed to build and sustain long term success
  • Understand how to build an explicit, clearly defined culture from your organization’s existing strengths that will drive patient experiences

The Ladder of Leadership - Turning good Frontline Employees into great Frontline Managers

The best frontline employee understands the importance of their role and their personal impact on customers. These employees are often promoted based on being good workers…only to discover that achieving results as a manager is a challenge. Discover how the frontline employee can develop the leadership and supervisory skills of a supervisor, team leader, or manager.

  • Discover how to lead by example
  • The impact of leadership styles on productivity and employee satisfaction
  • Explore the correlation between how co-workers treat one another and how that directly affects performance
  • How to motivate and empower your team while creating a vision of success for staff

Company Front Porch – Creating Contact Center Magic

Picture yourself wanting to talk to someone as a customer, calling their phone number and getting stuck in a maze of phone options and not being able to talk to anyone.  Has this ever happened to you? You might just have a simple question or want to spend some money, and you can’t talk to anyone.  Does this sound familiar?  Hopefully, this doesn’t happen with your company.  Have you called your company lately?

An interaction with your contact center is often the first place a customer comes in touch with your organization.  It’s your opportunity to create that lasting “first impression.”   It’s the Front Porch to your organization’s relationship with your customers – the moment of truth.  Do you want them to walk on by or sit a spell?  It’s where their Magic begins.

Welcoming your customer to your Front Porch is the first step in creating Relationship Magic for your organization.  In this highly interactive session, Bob explores opportunities to integrate technologies to make it easier for your customers and employees to do business together.  He’ll share his approach to creating a workplace that inspires employees to create a Magical experience for your customers – the same strategies took the Disney Reservation Center and Expedia to the top in Customer Satisfaction.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Ways to evaluate the “first impressions” and “frustration points” in the customer service/sales experience.
  • How to create a common purpose that everyone can rally around, enabling “welcoming” culture for customers and employees.
  • Strategies to develop an environment of celebration which reflects in your brand image.
  • Understanding reward and recognition programs to inspire employees to increase both customers and employee satisfaction.
  • Insuring technology integrates well with the “human” interactions to seamlessly improve bottom line business results.

You Had Me at Hello – Motivating Contact Center Agents to Surprise and Delight

Imagine arriving to work on your first day at your new contact center “job”.  You’re a little nervous wondering what it’s going to be like.  You’re worried about whether you will do well and whether you’ll fit in. During the interview process everyone seemed nice, but this is the start of a new career, and you are a little apprehensive.  You are escorted to a training room after you arrive and as you walk through the door, you see a celebratory scene. You are greeted with welcoming smiles, positive energy and congratulations on joining your new company.  WOW!!

During this energetic and interactive session, Bob shares experiences – bad, good and great – that illustrate approaches to motivating your contact center agents and creating a culture that surprises and delights your valuable customers.  With a goal of helping you become the employer of choice in your industry, Bob will challenge you to lead through actions and not just words.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Ideas to attract, hire and train the best fit employees for the right “role in the show”, whether it’s sales, service, or tech support.
  • Nomenclature of “job” titles to create pride in their responsibilities of creating success for your company.  Assure your “employees” don’t feel like a number.
  • How to create memorable “Scene One” for the employees’ initial experience of working for your company.
  • Reimagining the “Scene One” welcoming experience for your customers in a multichannel environment.
  • Examples of exciting and successful rewards and recognition for various roles in the contact center to motivate performance and employee retention.
  • Measuring the success of your most important asset . . .  your people!

Bringing Data to Life

Why Storytelling Matters

Industrial Engineer and master data storyteller, Jenny Fishpool leads a highly interactive work session on telling a compelling story with your data.  Boring reports die in inboxes and don’t influence decisions.  Make your data come to life with simple tools that will make you a data storyteller!

Audience Takeaways:

  • Foundational principles of properly communicating insights from data by:
  • Identifying audience priorities and tailor the story accordingly.
  • Creating effective visuals that enhance clarity and engagement.
  • Tools and techniques to refine their own presentations.

Culture by Design (Not by Accident)

Organizations known for providing world-class service are also known for their ability to tell stories and motivate others through storytelling. Most employees will not remember data, models, concepts, or graphs, but when presented through an engaging story, they not only understand the concept or message but can also retell the story to others, thereby sharing the message and reinforcing your organization’s unique culture.  Amid all the chatter about big data and analytics, there is one fundamental truth - organizations and their team members are transformed by their stories.

Mind Meld - What Your Employees Really Think

Mind Meld explores the invisible conversations happening inside every organization, the thoughts employees don’t always say out loud. This session helps leaders understand the emotional climate of their workplace, uncover hidden barriers to engagement, and close the gap between leadership intent and employee reality. Through guided reflection and practical tools, participants learn how to create cultures where people feel safe to speak, contribute, and belong.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Deeper understanding of employee sentiment and engagement drivers
  • Tools to surface unspoken concerns productively
  • Stronger trust between leaders and teams
  • Increased psychological safety
  • Improved retention and morale

 R.A.V.E. - Building a Culture That Respects and Values Everyone!

This signature program introduces the R.A.V.E. framework as a practical blueprint for creating individual workplace relationships grounded in respect, empathy, and accountability. Participants learn to respect each other’s personalities, which are behavioral, observable, and measurable. The session equips organizations with a shared language and a repeatable framework that strengthens collaboration, reduces conflict, and builds a culture where people feel genuinely valued.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Shared behavioral standards for respect
  • Stronger collaboration across teams
  • Increased leadership credibility and trust
  • Improved employee experience and retention
  • A scalable framework for sustainable culture growth

Not a Robot - Humanity and Service in the Age of AI

As technology accelerates, the human experience becomes the true differentiator. This session explores how organizations can embrace AI and automation while protecting empathy, authenticity, and personal connection. Participants examine how emotional intelligence, presence, and service excellence become more valuable, not less, in a digital age. The focus is not on fear of technology, but on the intentional design of human-centered service.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Clear understanding of AI’s impact on culture and service
  • Strategies to balance efficiency with humanity
  • Stronger emotional intelligence in tech-driven environments
  • Elevated customer and employee experience
  • Future-ready leadership mindset

From Main Street USA to Your Street™ - Transforming your business through the “Magic” of Disney

From Backstage to Onstage, learn how to create world-class service through leadership, storytelling, and intentionality. Organizations that consistently deliver exceptional experiences don’t rely on chance. They rely on culture, clarity, and leaders who model excellence every day. Culture isn’t built through policies or presentations alone. It’s built through shared purpose, consistent behaviors, and stories that bring values to life.

What is Role vs. Purpose? In this engaging session, participants will learn how to translate proven service principles into their own organizational culture, turning values into behaviors, and behaviors into memorable moments. Barry connects his People-First Philosophy and Success Equation to the operational realities leaders and teams face every day, providing a clear path from inspiration to execution.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Build a Culture of Excellence through leadership behaviors and service standards.
  • Use storytelling as a leadership tool to reinforce culture and purpose.
  • Create alignment between employee experience and customer experience.
  • Understand what it means to be deliberately different in your service delivery.
  • Translate world-class service principles into your organization to drive sustainable results.

“Whistle While You Work” - Aligning People, Process, and Purpose While Keeping It Human

It’s not just Pixie Dust. Barry helps teams understand how shared purpose, intentional communication, and consistent leadership behaviors create stronger partnerships across complex ecosystems. In today’s fast-moving environment, collaboration must become a cultural discipline, not just a meeting, a project plan, or AI driven.

How do you keep it genuine? At Disney, the common purpose was simple: “We create happiness.” Through captivating storytelling, proven principles, and practical reflection, this session explores how collaboration becomes sustainable when it is anchored in purpose, reinforced through daily behaviors, and supported by clear communication and trust. Participants will discover how to move from transactional coordination to transformational partnership – strengthening connection, alignment, and culture across their internal and external networks.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Align teams around a shared purpose to strengthen collaboration.
  • Apply Disney-inspired culture principles within complex organizations.
  • Break down silos and improve cross-functional communication.
  • Strengthen trust and teamwork through Human Interactions using Barry’s ABC framework as your blueprint (“Always Building Culture”).

“Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide” - Disney Quotes to Inspire, Build Culture, and Drive Operational Excellence

In this engaging and whimsical keynote, Barry brings business lessons to life through memorable Disney character quotes and the real-world leadership experiences behind them. This session connects timeless storytelling wisdom to modern workplace culture, leadership behaviors, and customer experience—creating a message that is both inspiring and highly relevant.

“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.” Through humor, reflection, and practical application, audiences leave energized with actionable leadership insights, a shared language for culture, and renewed clarity on how everyday decisions and behaviors shape meaningful, memorable experiences for employees and customers alike.

 Audience Takeaways:

  • Lead with integrity, empathy, and accountability.
  • Inspire teams through storytelling and shared language.
  • Reinforce culture through values-based decisions and behaviors.
  • Connect leadership behavior to operational excellence and organizational reputation.
  • Have fun!

Creating Killer Spokespersons

Are your spokespersons killing their media interviews or just getting killed?  Go from zero to hero with the right training.

Expert media trainer Joel Staley teaches communications leaders how to help senior executives become better spokespersons and storytellers who can powerfully influence the narrative when engaging with the news media.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Recognizing the tell-tale signs that a spokesperson needs additional training.
  • Situations that require additional training for any spokesperson, including experienced ones.
  • How to persuade reluctant senior leaders to receive media training.
  • Techniques that help senior leaders accept the counsel and coaching given during a media training session.
  • Elements included in the best media training sessions.

 

Calming the Storm - Communications strategies to mitigate an active crisis and prevent the next one

In this presentation, Joel Staley, an award-winning crisis communications expert, reviews best practice tactics and techniques that help communications leaders mitigate the current crisis and may even prevent the next one from happening. He draws upon dozens of crisis scenarios that he’s managed including a client that faced a CBS News 60 Minutes investigation. He shares those insights throughout his presentation.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How to conduct an organizational vulnerabilities assessment
  • How to develop crisis scenario plans that mitigate the discovered vulnerabilities
  • How to stage a tabletop crisis scenario training session for your team
  • How to create a narrative and messaging that will preserve trust in a crisis
  • Steps to take in the first 24 hours of a crisis

The Art of the Speech – Writing Powerful Speeches that Engage and Captivate

Most PR pros don’t take a speech writing class in college. Professional seminars often teach you how to give a speech but not how to write one for someone else. Even so, PR pros are often saddled with writing speeches and preparing presentations for senior executives and/or spokespersons. So, what are the secrets to writing a great speech? Joel’s masterclass in speechwriting shares the following principles and techniques every great speechwriter should know:

  • How many days or weeks are needed to write the perfect speech?
  • Where do you start?
  • What makes a good opening? Closing? Jokes?
  • How should you incorporate visuals and technology?
  • Best use of diction, tone, pace, volume, hands, etc.
  • How to convince your spokesperson or CEO to rehearse in front of you?
  • How long should the speech be?

As a public relations professional who’s written speeches for senior executives of Disney, other Fortune 500 companies, and a cabinet member of a foreign government, Joel answers these questions while sharing examples of some of the best orators of our lifetime including Walt Disney, Martin Luther King, Jr., Winston Churchill, Brene Brown and more.

How to Play Nice with Marketing

Ending the Cold War Between Sales and Marketing

In many organizations, sales and marketing operate like neighboring countries in a quiet cold war — sharing the same territory but rarely the same strategy.

Sales believes marketing doesn’t generate enough leads. Marketing believes sales ignore the brand strategy. Meanwhile, both teams are trying to accomplish the same goal: grow revenue.

Drawing from leadership experience across Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and collegiate athletics, Tom Hoof explores why this divide exists and how organizations can transform it into a competitive advantage.

Through real examples — including how untapped market segments can dramatically shift revenue and fan engagement — this session demonstrates how aligning sales strategy, marketing insight, and brand experience can unlock growth that neither department can achieve alone.

Attendees will leave with practical ideas for building stronger collaboration, smarter segmentation strategies, and a culture where revenue generation truly becomes a team effort.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Break down internal silos between sales and marketing to create a unified revenue strategy
  • Identify overlooked consumer segments and growth opportunities within their market
  • Align brand messaging, fan experience, and sales strategy to drive stronger customer loyalty
  • Foster a culture of innovation and collaboration across departments
  • Turn marketing insights into actionable sales opportunities

Leading Dynamic Teams — Harnessing “Positive Tension”

In complex organizations, the most important work rarely happens within a single discipline. It emerges from teams of specialists—designers, strategists, storytellers, operators, and leaders—each bringing their own priorities, expertise, and perspectives to the table. When these forces converge around a shared objective, tension is inevitable.

The real challenge is learning how to keep that tension productive. Drawing from decades of real-world leadership experience on complex global projects, Theron explores the principles behind truly dynamic teams. Participants will learn how to align teams around a compelling vision, communicate across different professional cultures, and create the conditions where individuals contribute their very best work. 

Because the environments that organizations create for their customers, audiences, and communities are only as strong as the environments they create for their teams, this session examines how high-performing teams build trust, navigate competing viewpoints, and maintain forward momentum in the face of complexity. Participants will explore the cultural conditions that allow specialists to collaborate effectively, the leadership mindset required to guide interdisciplinary teams, and the critical role of positive tension in producing innovative outcomes.

For professionals responsible for guiding collaborative work, this course offers a practical framework for turning team complexity into collective strength.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How to turn competing perspectives into productive collaboration rather than conflict. 
  • Practical methods to align diverse teams around a clear, shared vision. 
  • Techniques to build trust and improve communication across disciplines. 
  • How to lead and contribute effectively within complex, cross-functional teams. 
  • Ways to harness team tension to generate stronger ideas and better outcomes. 

Transforming Customers into an Audience of Advocates

Across today’s global economy, the most successful organizations understand a fundamental shift: customers no longer seek transactions alone. They seek meaningful experiences that connect with their identity, values, and emotions. Brands that recognize this shift move beyond simply selling products or services. They invite people into a story.

In this session Theron shares the principles behind this transformation, grounded in more than three decades creating and building story-driven environments for premier brands around the world. At the center of this work is Narrative Experience Design—an interdisciplinary approach that uses storytelling and experience design to create emotional connections across every brand touchpoint, whether physical, digital or human.

When organizations design experiences with narrative at their core, something powerful happens. Customers stop behaving like consumers and begin behaving like participants. They remember the experience, return to it, and share it with others. Over time, this shift turns passive customers into engaged audience members who advocate for the brand. Through real-world examples and practical frameworks, participants will explore how purpose-driven storytelling, consistent experience design, and meaningful engagement can build deeper relationships with the people organizations serve.

For leaders, designers, and strategists seeking to create stronger brand loyalty and durable differentiation, this course offers a compelling perspective on how experiences can transform customers into devoted advocates.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How to design experiences that create emotional connection—not just transactions. 
  • Practical ways to use storytelling to engage customers as active participants. 
  • How to ensure consistency across every customer touchpoint. 
  • Techniques to create memorable experiences that drive return visits and loyalty. 
  • How to turn satisfied customers into advocates who actively promote your brand. 

Beyond Storytelling— Narrative as Organizational Strategy

Story has become one of the most sought-after capabilities in modern organizations—but too often it remains confined to marketing rather than shaping the experiences people actually have with a brand. From marketing campaigns to executive roles dedicated to narrative and brand voice, they are recognizing that emotional connection is essential to standing out in a crowded market.

Yet many brands still struggle to translate storytelling into meaningful, repeatable experiences.

In fact, while the principles of the Experience Economy have been widely embraced since their introduction, many businesses still find it difficult to operationalize them at an enterprise level. Narrative Experience Design provides the bridge between aspiration and execution—connecting brand purpose, customer engagement, and measurable business outcomes into a unified framework.

In this session, Theron shares how organizations can move beyond storytelling as a communication tactic and instead use narrative as a strategic structure that informs decisions across the entire organization. Drawing on his work leading multidisciplinary teams and delivering large-scale experiences for global brands, he demonstrates how a clear branded narrative can align internal teams, guide design decisions, and create consistent experiences across every touchpoint. Participants will explore how narrative becomes more than a message—it becomes an operating system for organizations who are seeking a deeper and longer-lasting connection with their customers and employees.

For leaders seeking to move beyond messaging and build organizations that intentionally transform storytelling into a strategic tool that shapes culture, guides innovation, and ensures that every interaction reinforces the brand’s purpose.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How to move beyond storytelling as messaging and use it to guide business decisions. 
  • A framework for aligning teams around a clear and actionable brand narrative. 
  • How to translate brand purpose into consistent, real-world customer experiences. 
  • Ways to use narrative to improve collaboration, clarity, and decision making. 
  • How to embed narrative into your organization to drive long-term differentiation. 

“Solutioning”: Turning Insight into Impact

The most successful ideas rarely emerge from inspiration alone. They come from a disciplined process that aligns a client’s brand, the needs of their audience, and the business objectives driving the effort.

In this session, Theron shares the principles behind “solutioning,” a structured approach used to guide teams in generating ideas that are both imaginative and strategically grounded. Developed through decades of leading multidisciplinary teams on complex global projects, this framework ensures that innovation is focused on solving the right challenges while delivering meaningful value for the client.

Participants will explore how aligning story, strategy, and design at the earliest stages of a project creates the conditions for the most successful outcomes. Rather than constraining creativity, a clear framework enables teams to channel their collective expertise toward ideas that resonate emotionally with customers while supporting measurable business goals. 

For leaders responsible for guiding innovation, design strategy, or complex initiatives, this session provides a powerful perspective on how to focus creative energy, align teams around a shared vision, and transform early ideas into solutions that truly deliver impact. Because the most powerful ideas are not simply imagined—they are intentionally designed to solve the right problem.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How to align brand, audience, and business goals to solve the right challenges. 
  • A structured approach to generating ideas that are both creative and strategic. 
  • Techniques to focus teams early, reducing rework and improving outcomes. 
  • How to use constraints to sharpen thinking and unlock better solutions. 
  • How to develop ideas that deliver both emotional impact and measurable results.

LANDS™: Strategic Communication for Leaders Who Drive Change

Most leaders don’t fail at strategy — they fail at communication. The plan is clear in their head, but it doesn’t land with the people who need to execute it. Messages get diluted through layers. Change stalls because no one addressed resistance before it took root. Leaders communicate at their teams instead of through them.

LANDS™ is a proprietary five-phase strategic communication framework built for leaders navigating complexity, change, and high-stakes decisions. Developed by MaryBeth from her experience as Head of Communications at Walt Disney World and nearly 30 years leading change inside complex organizations, the framework gives leaders a repeatable system for making communication stick — from stakeholder analysis through long-term adoption. Currently deployed across a 5-level leadership development program in its second year — designed to equip leaders at every level with a common communication operating system.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Listen — Stakeholder analysis and audience mapping before you open your mouth
  • Align — Message design using DKBF (Do, Know, Believe, Feel) and goal connection
  • Navigate — Communication cascade planning, messenger briefs, difficult conversations, and style calibration
  • Deliver — Structured delivery including SBIA feedback, coaching conversations, crisis communication, and escalation
  • Sustain — Follow-up verification and change reinforcement at 10-day, 30-day, and quarterly milestones
  • 25+ practical tools leaders can use immediately — not theory, not frameworks they’ll forget by Monday

Keynote | Half-day workshop | Full-day workshop | Embeds into multi-day leadership programs

Lead from Strength

Most people spend their day working in their weaknesses without realizing it. The result? Drained energy, average performance, and the slow erosion of what made them stand out in the first place. Common advice — close the gap, shore up the weakness, round out the skillset — is making your best people dull.

This session flips the model. Using the CliftonStrengths® framework, MaryBeth helps participants discover their natural talents and learn to apply them with precision — at work, in leadership, and in how they show up every day. Participants complete the full CliftonStrengths® 34 assessment before the session, so every minute of live time is active, applied, and personal. Whether it’s an executive retreat, a team off-site, a development program, or an all-hands kickoff — this is where strengths-based performance begins.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Personal discovery of your full CliftonStrengths® 34 profile and how your themes show up in daily work
  • Practical strategies to deploy dominant talents — and manage the ones that trip you up
  • A shared language that changes how teams talk about performance and contribution
  • A personal action plan for leading from strength — applicable immediately
  • Optional 12-week activation course to deepen application and build a strengths habit back at work

Half-day workshop | 2–3 hours | Scales to any group size | Shorter and extended formats available

The Strengths-Based Team: From Cooperation to True Collaboration

Most teams cooperate. They share information, attend the same meetings, and generally get along. But cooperation isn’t collaboration. Real collaboration requires people to understand what each person does best, trust each other’s contributions, and actively position one another for success.

This workshop uses CliftonStrengths® to map the team’s collective talent, surface hidden dynamics, and build a shared operating language. MaryBeth guides teams through real conversations about how they work — not how they wish they worked — and helps them design practical commitments for how they’ll leverage each other’s strengths going forward.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Team strengths map by domain — revealing collaboration superpowers, gaps, and shadow side tendencies
  • Four collaboration spaces — innovating, influencing, coordinating, and getting change adoption
  • Honest dialogue about partnership dynamics, friction points, and the common collaboration traps that derail teams
  • Strategies for partnering across different — even opposing — strengths
  • Shared commitments for how the team will operate differently — not just cooperate

The Coaching Leader: Developing Leaders Who Develop Others

The best leaders don’t just execute. They multiply capability in the people around them. But most leaders were never taught how to coach — they default to directing, solving, or avoiding development conversations altogether.

This session equips leaders with Gallup®’s Boss to Coach model and Five Coaching Conversations — a practical rhythm for the moments that matter: quick connects, check-ins, developmental coaching, and progress reviews. MaryBeth draws from her executive coaching practice to show leaders how to ask better questions, spot strengths in action, give direct feedback using SBIA, and shift from being the answer to developing the people who find them.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Gallup®’s Boss to Coach shift — moving from directing and telling to asking and individualizing
  • Gallup®’s Five Coaching Conversations as a practical rhythm for ongoing development
  • Strengths-based coaching tools: spotting strengths in action, mining for talent, and keeping a coaching file
  • The SBIA feedback model for giving direct, growth-oriented feedback
  • Practice-heavy session — leaders leave with real coaching skills, not just concepts

Feedback That Builds: Giving and Receiving Feedback Through Strengths

Most people avoid feedback — giving it and getting it. Leaders sugarcoat with the Bamboozle Sandwich or skip it entirely. Employees brace for criticism and miss the growth. The result: 65% of employees report receiving zero recognition for good work in any given year, and the feedback they do get rarely changes behavior.

This session tackles both sides. MaryBeth teaches leaders to deliver direct, specific feedback using the S.B.I.A. model (Situation, Behavior, Impact, Ask/Alternative) and helps participants receive feedback without defensiveness using the S.C.A.R.F. framework — understanding the neuroscience of why feedback triggers threat responses and how to move from avoidance to action. Built on CliftonStrengths®, the session connects feedback to what’s already working — not just what’s broken.

Audience Takeaways:

  • The S.B.I.A. feedback model — direct, specific, and actionable
  • Common feedback traps: the Bamboozle Sandwich, Playing “Not It,” and the Accidentally Lazy Recognizer
  • S.C.A.R.F. applied to receiving feedback — why feedback triggers threat and how to stay open
  • Level 2 Questions to deepen praise and turn recognition into development
  • Live practice delivering and receiving real feedback — not hypotheticals

Half-day workshop | 2–3 hours | Scales to any group size | Can be split into separate giving/receiving sessions

The Full Tank: The Forgotten Route to Peak Performance (Keynote)

Bringing your A-game feels like one of those days when every stoplight is red. You can drive faster, harder, slower, smarter — and you keep hitting new red lights anyway. “Work harder” doesn’t get you far when you’re running on fumes. And most people are running on fumes — not because they lack talent, but because they’re spending all day in their weaknesses instead of their strengths.

In this high-energy keynote, MaryBeth shows audiences how to stop grinding through the day and start operating from the place where they’re naturally at their best. Using the CliftonStrengths® framework, she helps people identify the three words that define their unique contribution — and put them to work immediately. Audiences leave with a personal formula for showing up stronger, sharper, and with more energy — even on the hard days.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A clear, personal understanding of individual strengths and how to deploy them daily
  • Three personalized words that reconnect people with their best performance
  • Practical strategies to stop draining energy on weakness and start building from strength
  • Renewed confidence and a tangible plan for showing up at your best
  • An energized room and a shared language that sticks long after the session ends

Radical Creativity – Radical Being, Thinking, Doing, Collaborating

What if breakthrough ideas weren’t rare lightning bolts, but the result of small, deliberate shifts?  Join us as we pull back the curtain on how truly innovative ideas are born (spoiler: it’s not just pixie dust!) In this high-energy, story-rich 60 minute keynote, Lee shows that adjusting how you show up, shifting your mindset, thinking laterally, and collaborating in unexpected ways can unlock bold, practical solutions to challenges big and small. Through real-time examples from his Disney experience, Lee will bring “Radical Creativity” to life, proving that innovation isn’t reserved just for artists or the “creative types.”

Audience Takeaways:

  • A simple, repeatable framework for generating fresh, practical ideas
  • Easy ways to shift mindset and behavior so creativity becomes a daily habit
  • Lateral thinking tools that can immediately be used to solve persistent business challenges
  • Inspiration to tap into unexpected partnerships to elevate ideas and results

Business as UNusual - Design Thinking the Disney Way

Ready to shake up the status quo? Business as UNusual is a high-energy, 1-2 hour virtual keynote and workshop designed to turbocharge your team’s creativity and innovative thinking. Using the full Design Thinking journey (scoping, empathizing, ideating, and developing), we’ll dive into real-world ways to solve challenges like humans—not robots. This isn’t your average slide-deck snoozefest. It’s interactive, team building, slightly magical, and unapologetically FUN. We’ll explore the mindsets and behaviors that turn great ideas into actionable, on-strategy gold—while strengthening collaboration and creativity across your culture.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A human-centered framework to tackle any challenge, big or small
  • A common language of creativity that makes collaboration way less awkward
    and way more productive
  • Tangible tools to make ideation smoother, stickier, and more strategic
  • Practical inspiration to make creativity a habit vs and epiphany

Unlikely Collaboration

How to use creativity, fresh input and dissimilar connections make better connections and bigger ideas!

What happens when two wildly different creative minds decide to build something together? When brilliantly eccentric Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí teamed up with visionary storyteller Walt Disney, it wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t predictable. It was bold. It was strange. And it was brilliant.

In this engaging and energizing 90 minute session, Lee explores how unlikely partnerships spark ideas that simply wouldn’t exist otherwise. Because real creativity doesn’t just happen when like-minded people agree with each other, it happens when different perspectives collide in just the right way. Through the story of this unexpected alliance, we’ll uncover how inviting fresh input, embracing creative tension, and collaborating throughout the entire process can lead to ideas that are bigger, braver, and more memorable.

This session blends storytelling, insight, and practical tools you can use right away, whether you're leading a team, shaping strategy, or simply trying to think a little bigger.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A New Lens on Collaboration - why the most powerful partnerships often come from surprising places and how to find them
  • Confidence in Creative Tension - how to lean into differences instead of smoothing them over and turn friction into fuel
  • Tools for Connecting Unrelated Ideas - simple ways to combine fresh inputs into concepts that feel original and exciting
  • A Spark to Think Bigger - practical inspiration you can apply immediately to your work, your team, and your next bold idea.

Courageous Leaders, Courageous Cultures

How Everyday Leadership Behaviors Shape Engagement, Energy, and Retention

Culture is not built through slogans—it is built through courage. In this energizing keynote, Diane draws from two decades of leadership experience inside Disney and her work as a culture architect to explore how leaders shape the emotional climate of their organizations every day. She reveals how clarity, consistency, and intentional behavior create cultures people want to be part of. Leaders leave understanding that culture is not accidental—it is designed through presence, decisions, and standards that either spread energy or silently erode it.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Practical behaviors that immediately strengthen culture
  • Insight into how energy spreads through teams
  • Tools to align leadership actions with stated values

Designing Culture with Intention

Why the Strongest Workplace Cultures Are Built by Design, Not Default

Organizations don’t drift into excellence—it’s by design. In this strategic and forward-thinking session, Diane reframes culture as architecture: a system of behaviors, rituals, leadership standards, and employee experiences that must align with business strategy. She explores the employee lifecycle—from attraction to alumni—and identifies where friction quietly undermines engagement. Rather than treating culture as a soft initiative, this keynote provides a blueprint for deliberate alignment. Participants walk away with a clear lens for evaluating their own systems and a renewed commitment to building culture by design, not by accident.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A systems-based view of culture
  • Awareness of hidden breakdown points
  • A roadmap for long-term alignment

Designing a Life, Not Just a Career

Creating the Next Chapter with Intention, Clarity, and Purpose

Many professionals build successful careers but rarely pause to consider whether the life surrounding it feels aligned. In this reflective and thought-provoking keynote, Diane introduces a life design perspective that invites leaders to step off autopilot and think intentionally about what they are building. Through structured reflection and strategic questioning, participants explore environment, relationships, purpose, and possibility. This session is not about abandoning ambition—it is about aligning ambition with meaning. Leaders leave with renewed clarity and ownership over the next chapter of their personal and professional lives.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A framework for thinking beyond career advancement
  • Clarity around values and long-term direction
  • Space to reflect before making major transitions

The Alchemy of Leadership: Transforming insight into alignment, and alignment into impact

It’s well documented that culture begins at the top. The tone, clarity, and consistency of a senior team ripple throughout the organization — influencing decision-making, trust, speed, and results.
The Alchemy of Leadership brings senior leaders together in a powerful, facilitated experience designed to transform individual insight into collective strength. When leaders deepen self-awareness, understand one another’s drivers, and align around shared values and priorities, something shifts. Conversations become more honest. Decisions become clearer. Momentum builds. This highly interactive experience is designed for corporate, higher education and non-profit sector leadership teams at all levels including the C-suite, executive leadership team, division leadership, team leadership. It may be delivered as a half-day, full-day, or two-day workshop depending on the team’s goals.
Participants leave better equipped to test assumptions, gain alignment, appreciate and leverage differences, flex leadership styles, engage in difficult conversations, and communicate with clarity and intention.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Deepening Self-Awareness: Leadership begins with understanding ourselves. Participants explore their motivations, blind spots, and leadership tendencies - and how those shape team dynamics.
  • Strengthening Decision-Making: We create space for every voice while sharpening how the team debates, prioritizes, and commits. Healthy tension becomes productive clarity.
  • Building High-Trust Relationships: We surface assumptions, reinforce positive intent, and reconnect leaders to shared purpose - especially critical in remote and hybrid environments.
  • Clarifying Shared Values and Direction: Are we truly aligned? Together, the team defines where it stands today, where it intends to go, and what must shift to get there.
  • Translating Insight into Action: Alignment only matters if it drives behavior. The team identifies concrete commitments and strategic priorities that move the organization forward.

The Alchemy of Teamwork: Strengthening trust. Sharpening collaboration. Accelerating results.

High-performing teams don’t happen by accident — they are built intentionally.
The Alchemy of Teamwork is a dynamic, highly interactive experience designed for teams at any level of the organization. It strengthens connection, improves communication, and builds alignment around how the team works together — recognizing that when collaboration improves, teams move faster, solve problems more effectively, and ultimately deliver stronger results.
When individuals understand their own working style and appreciate the perspectives of others, collaboration becomes easier. Assumptions are replaced with curiosity. Tension becomes productive. Accountability becomes shared.

Focus Areas:

  • Self-Awareness in Action: Strong teams start with individuals who understand how they show up. 
  • Trust & Honest Conversation: We create space for open dialogue so team members can surface assumptions, address tension constructively, and strengthen mutual respect. 
  • Communication & Collaboration: We explore practical ways to improve responsiveness, clarity, and coordination across roles and responsibilities.
  • Shared Expectations & Agreements: High-performing teams are clear about how they work together. 
  • Collective Ownership of Results: The conversation shifts from my role to our impact. 

Audience Takeaways:

  • Greater trust and understanding across roles and levels
  • Clearer communication norms
  • Stronger appreciation for diverse working styles
  • Tools to navigate difficult conversations
  • Agreed-upon team commitments
  • Renewed energy and shared accountability

The Art of the Interview: Helping leaders turn high-stakes conversations into opportunities for clarity, credibility, and impact.

Media interviews, public presentations, and high-visibility conversations require more than expertise—they require clarity of message, thoughtful preparation, and the ability to communicate with confidence under pressure.

In this session for 1-3 people, Jackie helps leaders strengthen how they represent themselves and their organizations in media, speaking engagements, and other high-stakes communication opportunities. Through a combination of strategic preparation, practical tools, and personalized coaching, participants learn how to shape their message, anticipate challenging questions, and communicate with credibility and impact.

Focus Areas:

  • Understanding the media landscape
  • Crafting clear, memorable messaging
  • Staying focused and in control of the conversation
  • Executive presence and delivery
  • Practice, playback and feedback

Audience Takeaways:

  • Greater confidence in media and public-facing conversations
  • Clear, strategic messaging aligned with organizational priorities
  • Practical techniques for managing difficult questions
  • Stronger executive presence and communication impact

Relentless Prioritization

A practical system to cut through chaos and focus on what moves results

As a leader, busy does not always equal progress. As pressure climbs, the reflex is to work harder, stay later, and give more, until one day there is nothing left to give. The solution is not effort. It is prioritization. In this interactive workshop, Michelle Baker, former Disney Institute Director and Disney Cruise Line Officer, guides leaders through an applied prioritization lab. Participants diagnose competing demands, select and sequence the vital few, and protect time for high impact work so results move faster and leadership presence gets stronger. This is practical, systems-driven work that helps teams reduce reactivity, cut meeting drag, and align around shared outcomes.

Audience Takeaways:

  • Define high impact priorities with clarity and precision
  • Reclaim focus for strategic decisions and leadership presence
  • Protect time for deep work that advances business results
  • Align teams and meetings around shared priorities and outcomes
  • Model clarity that inspires confidence across the organization

Grisilience

The Strength to Lead When Life Does Not Go to Plan

In this powerful, story-driven keynote, Michelle Baker shares what it truly takes to lead and live through challenge. Drawing from her journey from an introverted, uprooted childhood to thriving as a standout leader at Disney, she introduces the concept of Grisilience, the fusion of grit and resilience. This is not a “push through it” talk. It is a practical and human approach to building lasting strength, staying grounded, and leading with clarity when life will not slow down. Leaders leave with tools to navigate adversity, renewed clarity of purpose, and the confidence to rise, adapt, and lead through whatever comes next.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A practical approach for building lasting resilience, not just pushing through
  • Strategies to lead with courage and resolve, especially under pressure
  • A new perspective on sustaining high performance without the overwhelm

Leadership That Holds Under Pressure

A practical operating system for prioritization, delegation, and calm execution

Leadership breaks down when everything is urgent, everyone is stretched, and the calendar becomes the boss. In this high-impact keynote, Michelle Baker introduces a practical operating system for leaders who carry real responsibility and need their leadership to hold under pressure.

This is not motivational theory. It is an applied framework for the real world: constant decisions, competing priorities, and the nonstop pull to be everywhere at once. Michelle shows leaders how to regain control of time and attention through relentless prioritization, scale impact through strategic delegation, and lead with steadiness through calm execution.

Participants leave with a clear blueprint to reduce chaos, strengthen follow-through, and build a team that performs without the leader becoming the bottleneck.

Audience Takeaways:

  • A repeatable prioritization system that clarifies what matters most, even when everything feels critical
  • A delegation approach that builds ownership, capability, and accountability across the team
  • Tools for calm execution: steady decision-making, clear communication, and momentum without reactivity
  • How to stop being the constraint in the system and build a team that runs with confidence
  • A practical leadership rhythm that protects focus, improves performance, and reduces overwhelm

The Business of Entertainment: Building Global Brand Franchises

Entertainment is no longer a single product or platform—it is an interconnected ecosystem.
The world’s most successful brands are not built as one-off hits, but as franchises that extend across content, consumer products, interactive games, and immersive experiences. The ability to scale intellectual property across these touchpoints is what separates short-term success from long-term enterprise value.
In this session, Robert draws from over 30 years of experience across Amazon MGM Studios, Disney, Fox, and Discovery to break down how iconic brands evolve into global franchises. This program is rooted in his university-level teaching and real-world execution, providing a rare blend of strategic thinking and operational insight.
Participants will learn how to think beyond a single product or campaign and instead build a holistic brand ecosystem, that drives sustained growth.

Audience Takeaways:

  • The difference between a brand and a franchise—and why it matters
  • How to expand IP across “View It, Keep It, Live It” consumer touchpoints
  • The key building blocks of a scalable franchise strategy
  • How to align creative, marketing, and commercial teams
  • How leading entertainment companies extend lifecycle value

Keynote | Half-day workshop

From Story to Revenue: Monetizing Brands Across Products and Experiences

Storytelling creates connection. Strategy turns that connection into revenue.
Today’s most valuable brands are those that successfully translate content into multi-platform monetization—from merchandise and gaming to digital media and live experiences. Yet many organizations struggle to bridge the gap between creative development and commercial execution.
In this session, Robert shares how leading entertainment companies operationalize storytelling into scalable business models. Drawing from his executive leadership roles and keynote experience, he provides a practical framework for turning audience engagement into diversified revenue streams.
This is a highly actionable session designed for leaders looking to unlock new growth opportunities from existing IP.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How storytelling drives consumer behavior and purchasing decisions
  • The franchise monetization model across products, games, and experiences
  • How to identify the right extensions for your brand
  • How to balance brand integrity with commercial opportunity
  • Real-world case studies of successful IP expansion

Keynote | Half-day workshop | Full-day workshop

The Franchise Flywheel: Driving Engagement and Growth

The most successful brands don’t just attract audiences—they keep them engaged.
At the center of every enduring franchise is a repeatable system that continuously deepens consumer connection. Robert introduces the Franchise Flywheel, a proven framework that shows how brands move consumers from passive viewers to active participants—and ultimately, lifelong fans.
This model connects content, commerce, and experiences into a self-reinforcing cycle that drives engagement, loyalty, and revenue growth over time.
Built from Robert’s experience managing global franchises and launching multi-platform initiatives, this session provides a clear, actionable roadmap for building sustained audience engagement.

Audience Takeaways:

  • How to design a self-reinforcing engagement ecosystem
  • How to move consumers from awareness → purchase → experience → advocacy
  • How to extend brand relevance across multiple platforms
  • The role of consumer products, gaming, and experiences in retention
  • How to measure and optimize lifecycle value

Keynote | Half-day workshop | Full-day workshop

The Experience Economy: Turning Fans Into Lifelong Customers

We are no longer just selling products—we are delivering experiences.
Today’s consumers value what they do more than what they own. This shift has transformed how brands engage, retain, and grow their audiences. Organizations that embrace the experience economy are building deeper emotional connections—and seeing stronger loyalty and lifetime value as a result.
In this dynamic and highly relevant session, Robert explores how businesses across industries can leverage immersive experiences, personalization, and technology to create meaningful consumer engagement.
Drawing from real-world examples across entertainment, retail, and location-based experiences, this session expands beyond Hollywood and into any business looking to evolve its customer strategy.

Audience Takeaways:

  • What defines the experience economy and why it matters now
  • How immersive experiences drive loyalty and repeat engagement
  • The role of personalization and “frictionless” consumer journeys
  • How digital and physical experiences work together
  • How to rethink your business through the lens of experience design

Keynote | Half-day workshop | Full-day workshop

Improv Your Impact

Where in business do you learn how to think on your feet, read your audience, and support your colleagues in the heat of the moment?
In this two-hour highly interactive session, participants will learn to increase their impact in the workplace by discovering the skills to improve their ability to read an audience, increase creativity, and help reduce fear and uncertainty in pivoting out of tight and uncomfortable situations. This session can be customized for any team, group, or organization wanting to enhance their teamwork and work effectively together and it is most effective with teams of at least 5 people or up to hundreds.

This is not a theatre prep course! Using my deep experience in HR and Theatre, I will help participants learn and apply:

  •  A deeper understanding of the ‘soft’ skills needed in the workplace
  • How to understand their role in making others successful in public forums
  • Skills to read an audience & adjust to meet the needs of that audience
  • Tactics to feel more comfortable in ambiguous situations
  • To improve emotional intelligence, increase creativity, and learn to pivot out of tight and uncomfortable situations 
    Business schools such as Cass Business School in the UK, Duke University and Stanford University in the US, are including improv in their curriculum to help future leaders cope with a rapidly changing environment. Author Mike Bonifer has described improv as the 21st-century technology because it enables one to be flexible and adaptable, to spot opportunities, and to let go of what isn't working.

Options range from 90 min. to 2 hours

Navigating Change & Change Leadership

Change is an ongoing imperative for organizations. This dynamic workshop is designed to equip participants at the leadership and organizational levels to understand the essential skills and strategies needed to navigate effectively through change. Attendees will explore various types of change, recognize common reactions and behaviors, and understand how to foster a resilient organizational culture during transitional periods. 

Audience Takeaways:

  • Learn about the different types of change, common reactions, and individual behaviors exhibited during change
  • Understand the importance of building a resilient culture when experiencing change
  • Be equipped to navigate change and help others through change
  • Identify the organizational needs and strategic actions to take to support success during times of change

3- and 6-hour options

Creating A Thriving Team

This workshop will focus on practical strategies to improve workplace culture, build a stronger and more supportive work environment, and cultivate emotional intelligence within teams. Participants will learn how organizational culture shapes behaviors, how to identify and develop the unique needs of each team member, and how to engage employees to create a culture where everyone thrives and contributes to a shared mission. This workshop empowers you to make a positive, productive, and impactful nonprofit workplace through engaging activities and expert guidance.  

Audience Takeaways:

  • Identify the role culture plays in an organization and how to identify and support a purposeful workplace culture
  • Develop strategies to cultivate emotional intelligence, enabling team members to better understand, manage, and respond to their own emotions and those of others
  • Identify the positive and negative impacts that can occur within a misaligned organization
  • Understand the importance of building strong, collaborative teams where individuals can rely on each other for support.

Keynote | 3-5 hour workshop

Leadership for Transformation

This dynamic workshop is designed to equip participants with the essential skills needed to navigate and lead through change effectively. Attendees will explore various types of change, recognize common reactions and behaviors, and understand how to foster a resilient culture during transitional periods. 

Audience Takeaways:

  • Learn about the different types of change, common reactions, and individual behaviors exhibited during change
  • Understand the importance of building a resilient culture when experiencing change within change
  • Be equipped as leaders in navigating change and helping lead others through change
  • Identify the organizational needs during times of change

Keynote | 3-5 hour workshop

Let MagicMakers® Institute help you imagine “What’s Next?”

Every organization has a moment when incremental improvement is no longer enough—when leaders must step back, rethink assumptions, and intentionally design what comes next.

The MagicMakers® Institute partners with leaders and teams who believe:

  • Experience is a competitive advantage

  • Culture shapes results

  • Employees deserve to be developed, supported, and inspired

Whether you’re aligning leaders, energizing a workforce, or reimagining the experiences that define your brand, we create space for clarity, creativity, and momentum.

 

Let’s explore what’s possible—together.

Connect with the MagicMakers® Institute