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Inspire and empower your audience

Interactive, insightful, science-backed keynote presentations which entertain, educate and inspire, firing the imagination and instigating positive change.

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Kognitive founder, presenting in front of audience, squeezing 'stress' brain ball.

Let’s make your next conference one to remember

Imagine an event where people were glued to the edge of their seats. Where they learned new things about themselves, their brain and their performance that not only fascinated but inspired them. Imagine them walking away with practical tools that had the potential to make a real difference in their day, their career and their life.

When you work with Kognitive, there’s no need to imagine—we turn it into a reality. Our keynotes present new ideas backed by scientific rigour in a way every participant can understand, get excited about and apply in their lives. Delivered by Kognitive’s founder and managing director, Ethan Glessich, learn why our keynotes are frequently voted as best at conference.

“Ethan has delivered over 30 presentations at CPA Australia conferences and multiple to our team. His presentations are consistently rated as one of the best at conference.”
Executive General Manager  |  Education
Rob Thomason
Kognitive testimonial client headshot with man in suit.
Kognitive founder, Ethan Glessich, enthusiastically speaking in keynote presentation.

Meet the speaker.

Ethan Glessich is no ordinary presenter. An aerospace engineer turned productivity expert turned paragliding acrobatic pilot turned Kognitive founder—your audience is in for a treat.

Ethan’s journey—and Kognitive’s story—begins in 2008, 20 metres off the ground. Dangling by his paragliding gear having just survived a 1000-metre fall after a mid-air malfunction, a lot snapped into focus for Ethan. He walked away from that accident without a scratch but with a deep motivation to contribute something meaningful to the world. That drive led Ethan to found Kognitive.

As managing director of Kognitive, Ethan leverages cognitive science, data and flow to help business leaders transform their personal and business performance. His innovations have won an accolade of awards and recognition from organisations such as PwC, Smart Company, MIT, RMIT and The City of Melbourne, and Ethan has personally helped leading companies such as Wesfarmers, Mars Chocolate, CPA Australia, and the Heart Foundation transform their approach to operational excellence.

Ethan’s presentations will leave your audience sitting on the edge of their seat. Drawing from his paragliding adventures, hands-on business experience and cognitive research, they provide the perfect blend of entertainment, education and engagement. Sprinkled with interactive brain games, cognitive insights, humorous anecdotes and practical tools, Kognitive’s keynotes inspire, equip and empower your attendees to make a real difference to their work and lives.

Keynotes

Topics which tantalise your audience

Focus

Reclaim your focus with insights from cognitive science

Our jobs demand more concentration, precision and lateral thinking than ever before, but it has become almost impossible to focus at work these days. And it’s only getting worse.

Social media giants now employ armies of engineers, psychologists and scientists aimed at finding new ways of keeping our attention in their apps. Collaboration tools have exploded, unleashing an avalanche of notifications and robbing us of deep focus. As marketers relentless test new ways capturing our concentration and influencing our behaviour, it’s no wonder we end each day feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated and exhausted.

But today, we level the playing field. Today, we strike back. Today, we help you use the same science these corporations have been using against you—the science of focus—to give you unprecedented access to this critical cognitive function to unleash your full potential.

Take a breath and join us on a journey into the intricacies of your brain's focus system. Be ready for a few surprises as we push your attention to its limits, reveal the true capabilities and constraints of concentration, and offer practical brain-based tools that you can apply immediately to transform your focus, your business, and maybe... your entire life.

It’s time to focus on focus.

GET READY TO:

  • Transform your ability to concentrate and focus.
  • Cultivate a focus-friendly, highly productive work environment.
  • End the multitasking debate with hard science.
  • Deploy new practical tools that facilitate both deep work and improved collaboration.
  • Unlock the full potential of your focus in both your personal and work life.

Prioritise

Leverage neuroscience to master prioritisation and level-up in work and life

Prioritisation is a skill that goes beyond work; it's a crucial life skill that separates the good from the great, the ordinary from the extraordinary, and a life wasted from a life well-lived. It impacts our productivity, success, and fulfilment in all areas of life.

However, it's never been harder to prioritise what matters most. Information overload, ever-changing priorities, and constant distractions force us from pillar to post. To make matters worse, many of the world's most powerful organisations have built teams of engineers, psychologists, and behaviour experts to hack our behaviour, literally, to increase their revenue. But are they helping us achieve our priorities or their priorities?

In this workshop, we make it a fair fight. By exploring the science of prioritisation, you'll discover the cognitive and emotive tricks these organisations have been using against you, and how you can use them to influence your own decisions and actions to ensure you make meaningful progress on what matters most to you. You'll also uncover how to help your team and organisation do the same.

Guaranteed to leave you gobsmacked, this workshop will excite, empower, and equip you to level up at work and life by mastering one of life's most important skills. It will help you sift through the noise and tune into what truly moves the needle.

Don't waste your chance to make a difference in the world; prioritise prioritisation and make time count.

GET READY TO:

  • Challenge long held belief’s around prioritisation, decision making and behaviour.
  • Tap into a suite of practical tools to immediately improve prioritisation and decision quality.
  • Discover how to ethically hack your behaviour (and the behaviour of others) to ensure you’re set up to follow through with commitment and enthusiasm
  • Become much better equipped to manage high workloads and while staying focused on what matters most.
  • Discover how to overcome procrastination and leave the workshop feeling inspired and equipped to make positive change.

Adapt

From survive to thrive with adaptive planning

With recent world events turning entire industries upside down, an organisation’s ability to adapt has evolved from being a competitive advantage to being essential for survival. Lucky for us, planning is a core cognitive strength, but in a variety of circumstances, the brain’s standard decision-making process can transform from an asset to a liability. We can all too easily get lost in the detail, overwhelmed by emotion, or derailed by our biases. And as we adapt to the “new normal”, the costs of heading down the wrong path have never been greater.

All of this can be avoided if we build systems which proactively help us make optimal decisions, cultivate agility and keep us on track. Kognitive’s Adapt workshop does just that. Starting with the science of how the brain organically forms and adapts a plan, we uncover where it comes unstuck and how you can refine your tools, processes and systems to ensure you and your team are able to build an agile organisation, adapt to the changing environment and achieve your goals in the shortest possible time.

GET READY TO:

  • Better understand the core cognitive drivers and shortcomings of the brain’s decision making and planning processes.
  • Discover how to cultivate maximum agility without sacrificing direction.
  • Build more proactive, productive work habits and processes.
  • Unite and align your team.
  • Achieve your goals – faster.

Elevate

The science of creating a high-performance culture

The most important asset of any organisation is its people. The right staff, making the right decisions, with the right support is a sure path to success. Yet creating an optimal environment, operating rhythm, alignment and accountability for our staff to bring our strategy to life can be illusively complex.

Add challenging world events, remote working and AI to the mix and creating a high-performance team or culture has never been more difficult. If not managed effectively at the best of times, let alone in the aftermath of an international pandemic, we run the risk of doing more harm than good to our organisation’s and staff.

In this insightful workshop, Kognitive’s founder and managing director, Ethan Glessich, will reveal how new discoveries in cognitive science are shining light into how we can build better cultures. Coupled with research into remote working and case studies from organisations who’ve been operating with remote workforce for decades, you’ll leave with new science-backed and proven ways to create a high-performance organisation as we transition to the new normal.

THIS INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION WILL:

  • Explore the cutting-edge science of how the limitations of our cognitive capabilities complicate strategy execution.
  • Reveal how an awareness of our cognitive strengths and weaknesses can help us craft more effective cultures.
  • Uncover case studies and insights from high-performance organisations who have extensive pre-COVID experience in leading remote teams.
  • Deliver 5 practical tools your attendees can apply immediately to start their journey to elevating the performance of their organisation’s culture.
  • Reveal the 7 key domains of Kognitive’s Performance Pyramid and how you can use it to optimise your tools, processes and culture.

Breathe

Fortify mental resilience and wellbeing with cognitive insights

The mind is a powerful tool, capable of sophisticated planning, prioritisation and creativity. But these thoughts don’t happen in a vacuum. When times are tough, when life is challenging and when the news is bad, the mind can work against us, generating thoughts and emotions we don’t want and interfering with our ability to lead a healthy, happy and productive life. 

There’s often no changing the bad times, but there are ways of changing how we respond to them. Breathe is an enlightening keynote, examining the importance of mental resilience and the scientifically proven ways we can all build it. Kognitive Managing Director, Ethan Glessich, draws on decades of research into cognitive science and his own personal life challenges, to help your audience synthesise the tools they need to build resilience into their day and life.

In light of recent chaotic and stressful events, it has become essential for leaders to prioritise their team’s wellbeing. This keynote is a gift they’ll cherish, one that continues to give even after the presentation. It’s a gift that will help them strengthen their mental resilience, wellbeing and productivity, benefiting all aspects of their professional and personal lives.

THIS TOUCHING PRESENTATION WILL:

  • Give your attendees the tools they need to strengthen their mental resilience.
  • Reveal the latest scientific discoveries of how we can lay the foundation lasting mental wellbeing.
  • Show how small changes can lead to monumental shifts.
  • Help build a more resilient, productive workforce and culture.
  • Inspire your audience to take positive action today.

Custom

Customised or custom-built to align with your event’s goals

Do you have an idea for a keynote presentation or workshop but are not sure how to turn it into a reality? Leverage Kognitive’s extensive expertise in building high impact keynote presentations and workshops and have our team build you a presentation to make your next conference one to remember. We’ll conduct research in the science behind your challenge or desired outcome, build interactive activities that deliver key insights, and co-develop practical takeaways with you, that leave a lasting impression on your audience. We can even train your trainers to enable you to roll it out in a cost effective, controlled manner through-out the organisation. If you’ve got a particular idea or message in mind, get in contact and let’s turn it into a reality.

Testimonials.

I had the recent privilege of attending a Kognitive keynote at the RMA annual conference. From the outset I must say it was one of the most refreshing and practical learning experiences I have been exposed to in my adult life.

The essence of Ethan’s presentation was centred around individuals learning how their brain works and reacts under different circumstances. That may not sound like ground breaking news, but what is unique is the way he presents his concepts, and more importantly, provides you with extremely practical tools that will allow you to develop and achieve your goals from both a business and personal perspective.

DALE MUIR
Revenue Property & Customer Service Manager

Ethan has an inspiring story to share—personally and professionally. My colleagues and I left Ethan’s keynote feeling both uplifted and grounded at the same time—with many practical things to take away and implement. It was a breath of fresh air. Thank you Ethan.

DEBRA HOLDER
Director of Public Sector Innovation Network

Thank you for your passion, insight and energy. Our leadership team loved it. You made us all think twice about some important things we all take for granted each day.

TARA HANLON
Human Resources Director

Thank you for such a data rich, compelling and entertaining address. You were a hit! And your messaging was such that you really made an impression and convinced many of our leaders of the absolute need to change—which is fantastic. We need our leaders to look after themselves and your scientific, brain centred angle was very relevant.

ELEISHA NEILL
Learning & Development Manager

Ethan has been a frequent guest speaker at our executive MBA programs. He is an extremely engaging and motivationing speaker and the content is exceptional. What really separates Ethan’s presentations is his ability to make complex neuroscience relatable, practical and entertaining. Year after year our students cite his keynote presentations one of the most insightful sessions in the executive MBA.

DR. MARCUS POWE
Program Director

I saw Ethan present at a CPA Australia conference and invited him to run an extended session for our leadership team in New Zealand. He went above and beyond to ensure his message connected with our team and even helped us shape our program to get the most out of the insights after the session. The feedback from the team has been exceptional and we are already well on the way to putting in place the framework and tools.

ROSE ANN MACLEOD
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you so much. We’ve had an enormous amount of positive feedback from your presentation. It was great to have you form part of our national leadership conference. You delivered an extremely strong presentation which was highly relevant to our audience.

MELANIE UNTERSTEINER
Business Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer

We have used Ethan and Kognitive at both CPA Congress and at staff workshops. Ethan provides terrific insights to uncover what stops staff from fulfilling their productivity potential. We have since been able to focus on the most relevant challenges to drive up efficiency while adding real value to our members and staff. The keynote Ethan delivered for the Education Team got my staff thinking differently about some very important and often overlooked productivity issues. The interactive exercises and scientific explanation of how our brain concentrates was extremely insightful and engaging and has inspired the team to make a positive difference.

ROB THOMASON
Executive General Manager | Education

Kognitive’s keynote was extremely well received by our staff. Everybody was highly engaged and I had a lot of people come and tell me how great the session was in the days that followed. I am proud to say that I’m still using some of the tools presented and the impact on my focus has been nothing short of impressive.

BEN O’HARA
Dean

Want Ethan to speak at your next conference

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Frequently Asked Questions.

What makes Kognitive’s keynote presentations unique?

What makes Kognitive’s keynote presentations unique?

Three key factors make our presentations standout from the crowd.

  1. The presenter – Ethan Glessich has a unique blend of practical experience and technical insight combined with a passion to connect and inspire, which leaves a lasting impression on audiences.
  2. The science – We’ve gone to great lengths to make the latest scientific performance breakthroughs relatable, understandable and practical. Rather than regurgitating the latest pseudo science from the blogosphere, our presentations are built upon Kognitive’s own in-house research led by our in-house neuropsychologist.
  3. The delivery – We’ve used our insights about how the brain works to deliver truly inspirational presentations. Our presentations include interactive brain games, humour, passion, conversation, stories and pragmatic tools to keep audiences entertained, engaged and empowered.

This is why our presentations are frequently cited as best-at-conference.

How long are the keynote presentations?

How long are the keynote presentations?

We are able to deliver keynote presentations in a variety of lengths from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. Longer form presentations are available, however we recommend running these in a workshop format. You can learn more about our workshops on our Training page. Book a discovery call to discuss what presentation length will best suit your event.

What is the largest group size you are able to accomodate?

What is the largest group size you are able to accomodate?

There is no limit. We are able to present to an audience of any size, from ten to ten thousand people.

Are you able to deliver keynote presentations online?

Are you able to deliver keynote presentations online?

Yes, we have customised versions of our keynote presentations for online delivery.

Are you able to customise your presentations to meet our event theme and audience?

Are you able to customise your presentations to meet our event theme and audience?

Yes, minor customisation is included in most of our keynote packages. We are able to make major customisations or custom build a presentation for an additional fee.

At what locations are you able to deliver keynote presentations?

At what locations are you able to deliver keynote presentations?

We are able to deliver presentations at most locations around the world. Additional fees apply for face-to-face presentations outside of Melbourne. Some of the locations we have delivered keynotes or training include Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Auckland, Christchurch, Barcelona, Madrid, London, Lisboa and Zurich. Keynote presentations outside of Melbourne, Victoria is subject to COVID travel restrictions.

Are you able to deliver presentations after hours, on weekends or public holidays?

Are you able to deliver presentations after hours, on weekends or public holidays?

Yes, we are able to deliver presentations after hours, on weekends or public holidays. Presentations delivered outside of business hours incur additional fees.

What are your AV requirements?

What are your AV requirements?

You can find a detailed breakdown of our AV requirements here, but in summary, we require the ability to connect our MacBook Pro to a projection technology capable of outputting at a 16:9 aspect ratio. The presentation must be run from a Kognitive device. We also require a headset microphone (or lapel if a headset is not available), handheld microphones for audience participation, flip-charts and access to the sound system. Specific AV requirements differ between presentations and will be confirmed once you’ve made your booking.

What are the fees for a keynote presentation and what is included?

What are the fees for a keynote presentation and what is included?

Our fees for keynote presentations range from $5000 to $15,000 depending on audience size and location. This includes:

  • Preliminary brief with event organiser to better understand event goals, theme, keynote desired outcome and audience demographics.
  • Minor keynote customisation.
  • Rehearsal of keynote presentation.
  • Travel time to and from the event location.
  • Arrival 30 minutes prior to connect and test AV.
  • Post event feedback survey.
  • Presentation impact summary report.

Book a discovery call to evaluate fees and options in more detail.

How can I confirm your availability?

How can I confirm your availability?

Book a discovery call to confirm our availability.

Have another question? Send us an email

Positive change starts by inspiring a new mindset