Design and deliver communication that drives action
Clients and Stages
Stephanie's Talks
Stories That Sell
Make your stories 22x more memorable—and way more effective—in every sales conversation.
Every salesperson knows the value of a good story—but not every story closes. In this compelling, science-backed session, Stephanie pulls back the curtain on what makes a story truly persuasive. From the Coca-Cola Santa campaign to real-life sales coaching case studies, you’ll discover how to structure stories that are emotionally engaging, intellectually satisfying, and laser-focused on driving results.
You’ll leave with a practical, ready-to-use framework, plus insights grounded in neuroscience and social psychology. Whether you're pitching investors, selling software, or building a brand, this session will transform the way you connect with your audience—and help you land your message so it sticks (and sells).
Perfect for entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and anyone whose job is to influence.
Takeaways
- Identify the core components of a story that sells
- Apply neuroscience-backed techniques to make stories more memorable and emotionally resonant
- Leverage delivery techniques to make stories experiential
- Craft trust-building stories that increase likeability and connection
- Ensure every story has one clear, persuasive point that supports your message
Ideal Audiences
- Sales professionals
- Revenue ops teams
- Entrepreneurs and Founders
Format Options
- Keynote
- Workshop
- Panel
The Slide Trap
Don’t let your deck get in the way of your message.
Too many professionals start presentation prep by opening up a slide editor—or now, prompting AI to build the deck for them. The result? A cluttered, confusing, and forgettable experience. In this fast-paced, punchy lightning talk, Stephanie explores The Slide Trap—the common misstep of letting slides dictate your message—and offers a better way.
With a nod to how AI is changing the game, you'll learn how to structure your message, use slides as a supportive tool, and practice like it matters. Because your audience doesn’t remember your deck… they remember you.
Takeaways
- Identify the pitfalls
of starting a presentation by building slides instead of clarifying the message first.
- Recognize the limitations of AI in presentation prep and how to use it strategically.
- Differentiate between slides for a live presentation, leave-behind, or pre-reads.
- Apply practical techniques to keep slides from becoming a crutch and ensure the presenter, not the deck, leads the communication.
Ideal Audiences
- Corporate Leaders & People Managers
- HR & L&D Professionals
- Sales & Client-Facing Professionals
Format Options
- Lightning Talk
- Workshop
- Panel
Making Meetings Magical
Design Conversations That Shape Your Culture. Every time.
Most meetings are forgettable. Some are downright painful. But they don’t have to be!
In this eye-opening and energizing keynote, Stephanie reveals a radical truth: every meeting you run is an act of leadership and your golden opportunity to build clarity, trust, and momentum.
Drawing from years of experience designing strategic events, leadership offsites, and high-stakes conversations, Stephanie shares the biggest mistakes people make (hint: it’s not just the slides) and offers practical, immediately usable tools to fix them. You’ll learn the meeting design principles that shift culture and behavior—not with more meetings, but with better ones. Whether you’re leading a team, running an internal conference, or just trying to keep things moving, this talk will inspire you to raise the bar.
Takeaways
- Recognize meetings as high-impact leadership moments that shape culture, not just calendars.
- Identify common design failures that lead to disengagement, confusion, or wasted time.
- Apply foundational meeting design principles that elevate clarity, participation, and follow-through.
- Shift from passive facilitation to intentional leadership, even in informal or recurring meetings.
- Inspire others across their organization to raise the standard for how time together is used.
Ideal Audiences
- Corporate People Leaders & Managers
- HR + Culture teams
- Event Planners & Internal Comms Professionals
Format Options
- Keynote
- Workshop
- Meeting Makeover Lab
Your Stories Are Your Leadership Superpower
Stories Shape You. And Then They Shape Your World.
It’s no secret that great leaders are great storytellers. But what’s less obvious is that the most powerful story a leader ever tells is the one they tell themselves.
In this dynamic, story-rich keynote, Stephanie invites audiences to explore how personal narratives shape identity, behavior, and influence. Through vulnerable, funny, and relatable stories—from teenage rebellion to high-stakes consulting to quitting her job to move to Argentina—Stephanie illustrates how the stories we live by can either limit or liberate us.
This talk blends cutting-edge research, interactive moments, and practical tools to help audiences recognize the internal stories that shape their leadership—and rewrite them with intention. With the right story, leaders don’t just show up differently. They help others imagine something better too.
Because transformational leadership begins with transformational self-narratives.
Takeaways
- Explain how personal narratives shape identity, behavior, and leadership potential using the concept of the Story Loop.
- Recognize limiting self-stories and identify how they may be unconsciously driving current actions or holding them back.
- Practice rewriting a personal narrative using real experiences, with attention to meaning-making and perspective shift.
- Articulate how intentional storytelling can inspire others, catalyze cultural shifts, and define leadership identity
- Understand storytelling as both a personal development tool and a leadership superpower—one that starts internally and expands externally.
Ideal Audiences
- Young Leaders & Student Leadership Programs
- Emerging Professionals & Early-Career Cohorts
- Women’s Leadership & Empowerment Events
Format Options
- Keynote
Stephanie's Talks
Make It Land: Turn Words Into Action
Most leaders believe their job is to communicate clearly.
But clarity isn’t the end goal. Action is.
Every day, leaders present ideas, share updates, and explain decisions... and then watch those messages stall, fade, or get lost in translation.
In this high-impact keynote, Stephanie shows leaders how to communicate in a way that drives real behavior change. Grounded in her Influential Communicator framework, she breaks down what makes messages stick and
actually moves people to act.
Audiences not only leave inspired, they leave with tools they can use in their very next meeting or presentation.
They’ll learn how to:
- clarify the one idea that needs to land
- create emotional investment—not just understanding
- use storytelling to influence decisions and behavior
- turn everyday communication into measurable results
The most effective communicators don’t just share ideas. They make them land.
Audiences will leave able to:
- Clarify the one idea that actually needs to land—and cut everything that doesn’t support it
- Communicate in a way that earns attention, builds belief, and drives action
- Use storytelling to make ideas memorable, meaningful, and hard to ignore
- Create emotional investment—not just intellectual understanding
- Deliver messages that feel real, engaging, and impossible to tune out
Ideal Audiences
- Sales and revenue teams driving client decisions
- Product and cross-functional leaders influencing without authority
- Executives and leadership teams responsible for alignment and execution
- Founders and entrepreneurs who aim to turn vision into belief, buy-in, and momentum
Format Options
- Keynote
- Workshop
- Panel
Stop Talking. Your Meetings Are Killing Your Strategy.
Most leaders think their strategy fails in execution.
In reality, it starts breaking down much earlier, inside the meetings where that strategy is communicated, interpreted, and handed off.
Meeting after meeting, teams align… and then nothing changes.
Because the conversations weren’t designed to drive action.
In this keynote, Stephanie Judd challenges a common assumption:
More communication doesn’t create better outcomes. Better-designed communication does.
Just because people understand doesn't mean their going to do anything differently.
Stephanie reveals why traditional meetings create the illusion of alignment while quietly preventing ownership, clarity, and follow-through. And she gives you a better way forward.
Audiences will learn how to:
- shift from presenting information to designing participation
- create ownership in the room—not after the meeting
- turn alignment into action before anyone leaves
Strategy doesn’t fail after the meeting. It fails inside it.
Audiences Leave Able To:
- See meetings as the primary driver of alignment, ownership, and execution—not just time on the calendar.
- Spot the hidden design flaws that create false alignment and stall progress.
- Replace passive updates with conversations that require thinking, participation, and decision-making.
- Create ownership in the room—so action starts before the meeting ends.
- Redesign even routine meetings to drive clarity, momentum, and follow-through.
Ideal Audiences
- Corporate People Leaders & Managers
- HR + Culture teams
- Event Planners & Internal Comms Professionals
Format Options
- Keynote
- Workshop
- Meeting Makeover Lab
The Story You Tell Yourself
Your Internal Narrative Shapes How You Lead—and What Others Do Next
It's no secret that great leaders are great storytellers.
What's less obvious is that the most powerful story a leader tells is the one they tell themselves.
That internal narrative shapes how leaders show up, what they believe is possible, and how they communicate in moments that matter.
Through vulnerable, funny, and relatable stories—from teenage rebellion to high-stakes consulting to quitting her job to move to Argentina—Stephanie explores how personal narratives shape identity, behavior, and influence, and how those internal stories ripple outward to affect teams, culture, and results.
This talk blends cutting-edge research, interactive moments, and practical tools to help audiences learn how to recognize the stories driving their behavior, and then intentionally rewrite them to lead with greater clarity, confidence, and impact.
The story you believe becomes the way you lead.
And the way you lead shapes what others do next.
Audiences will leave able to:
- Identify the internal narratives shaping how they show up and lead
- Recognize how those stories influence their communication, decisions, and behavior
- Reframe limiting narratives into more useful, empowering perspectives
- Show up with greater authenticity, clarity, and intention in leadership moments
- Use personal storytelling to build trust, connection, and influence with others
Ideal Audiences
- Young Leaders & Student Leadership Programs
- Emerging Professionals & Early-Career Cohorts
- Women’s Leadership & Empowerment Events
Format Options
- Keynote
“Stephanie’s sessions were a phenomenal success; the high-impact format made it easy for even our busiest Engineering Program Managers to integrate essential skill-building into their schedules.
Participant engagement was outstanding. Googlers actively practiced and applied the techniques in real time, which speaks volumes to her ability to make complex topics immediately relevant.
We received consistently positive feedback highlighting the practicality of the content, which has already led to noticeable improvements in how our teams craft and deliver their core messages.”
Kayla Newton
PgM, T/PgM & PM Steering
Stephanie In Action
Stephanie helps leaders understand how to communicate in a way that drives behavior.
DisruptHR Colorado Springs
DisruptHR Northern Colorado
DisruptHR Northern Colorado
Stephanie's talk was engaging, interactive, and uniquely addressed some of our issues.
You kicked off our conference
with incredible power, clarity,
and heart.
I’m a professional speaker and writer. Stephanie’s talk was more than I expected in just 45 minutes. Just. Wow.
This was one of the most valuable sessions I've experienced in my time at Google. The content was new, and I instantly saw its benefit. I had two presentations later in the day where I applied what I learned. Recommending to everyone I know!
Super condensed and immediately actionable. This should be a mandatory experience for all PMs. I will be incorporating this into the onboarding guide for my team.
Stephanie's talk was engaging, interactive, and uniquely addressed some of our issues.
You kicked off our conference
with incredible power, clarity,
and heart.
I’m a professional speaker and writer. Stephanie’s talk was more than I expected in just 45 minutes. Just. Wow.
This was one of the most valuable sessions I've experienced in my time at Google. The content was new, and I instantly saw its benefit. I had two presentations later in the day where I applied what I learned. Recommending to everyone I know!
Super condensed and immediately actionable. This should be a mandatory experience for all PMs. I will be incorporating this into the onboarding guide for my team.
About Stephanie
Keynote Speaker | Managing Partner, Wolf & Heron
Stephanie Judd is a keynote speaker and leadership communication expert who helps leaders land messages that move people to act. As co-founder and Managing Partner of Wolf & Heron, she blends social psychology, influence science, and behavior change to design conversations that inspire clarity, connection, and buy-in.
A high-energy and globally recognized speaker, Stephanie has captivated audiences from the Product Management Festival in Zurich to DisruptHR stages across the U.S. She has helped drive leadership breakthroughs at Google, Pfizer, Discover, and the University of Michigan, where her keynotes and workshops redefine what it means to communicate with impact.
Her style is unapologetically interactive, insight-packed, and unforgettable—leaving audiences with practical tools they can apply immediately.
When she’s not on stage, Stephanie lives in Colorado, where she rock climbs, snowboards, and wrangles two small kiddos.