Keynotes & Workshops — Jeremy BerriaultReal leadership talks.
No jargon. No theatre.
Just what works.
Jeremy Berriault brings behaviour-first leadership thinking to conference stages and leadership rooms around the world, challenging outdated agile dogma and giving audiences practical tools they can use on Monday morning.
SIGNATURE TALKS
Two talks. Both land differently.
Both give people something to act on.
Each talk is built from real work with real teams — not theory, not frameworks. Custom lengths and formats are available for your event.
KEYNOTE
F*ck Agile: Stop Worshipping "Agile" and Start Leading Like a Human
A confession, a provocation, and a better way forward. This talk challenges the room to stop outsourcing courage to a process, and start building leadership systems that actually hold under pressure.
"Agility isn't something you install. It's how people behave with other humans under pressure."
Most organizations didn't buy Agile because they were reckless. They bought it because they were drowning, and someone sold them a label that promised order. This talk follows that story from hope to disillusionment to a better question: what actually creates agility?
Jeremy takes the audience through the moment "Agile" stopped being an adjective and became a religion, and what happens when people are expected to perform agility instead of practice it.
What the audience walks away with
- A reframe: agility isn't a process, it's what happens when leadership builds safety, clarity, and focus
- Make priorities real: one question that exposes whether a team actually has a plan or just wishful thinking
- Fix decision hygiene: a simple way for cutting the wait, who decides, by when, with what information
- Protect the humans: treat wellbeing as a capacity constraint, not a perk
- The earliest sign your team is stretching past healthy, and what to do about it
KEYNOTE
Stop Relying on Heroics: Build a Leadership Operating System
Calm leadership isn't a personality trait. It's a system. This talk gives leaders a concrete weekly loop, built from behaviour-first principles — that they can run before the week is out.
,
"When your system is unclear, your people become the system. And people systems burn out."
Most leaders aren't failing. They're load-bearing. Every escalation, every priority conflict, every stalled decision runs through them. This talk names that cost, then gives a way out.
Jeremy walks through nine trials of leadership in complexity (ethos, mental models, daily agility, financial agility, empowerment, communication, change, metrics, and executive presence) and distills them into one tool: The Weekly Leadership Loop.
What the audience walks away with
- The Weekly Leadership Loop: 6 steps leaders can run every week: intent, guardrails, signals, decision notes, triggers, review date
- Why "calm" is a process, not a personality, and how to build it
- A 60-second exercise that reveals whether leadership owns its work or is chasing it
- Decision hygiene: written decisions as the transport layer for team alignment
- How to escalate on thresholds, not emotion, and why that changes everything
- What it means to leave a system that works when you're not in the room
Why It Lands
Your audience doesn't need another framework. They need these four things.
Every talk is designed to leave people with something they can use before the conference badge comes off or leaves the office.
A reframe that sticks
The talk changes how people think about agility, leadership, and what's actually creating the drag in their teams.
Practical tools
Not slides. Not theory. Actual moves, the priority question, the decision note, the weekly loop, which work on Monday morning
Language that travels
Phrases that stick: "load-bearing leadership," "decisions that don't dissolve," "calm as a process." Teams use them after you've left.
An honest conversation
Jeremy doesn't protect the industry. He names what's costing people their voice and gives them a path that doesn't require burning anyone out.
Who's in the Room
These talks are designed for people who are responsible for what matters.
Whether it's a leadership summit, an agile conference, or an internal off-site, Jeremy calibrates to the room.
Senior leaders & executives
Agile coaches & Scrum Masters
Engineering & product leaders
People & culture teams
Operations managers
Leadership retreat attendees
Conference keynote audiences
Change management teams
Jeremy Berriault
Founder, Berriault & Associates · Behaviour-First Leadership Advisor
Jeremy Berriault has spent his career doing one thing: helping organizations stop spinning their wheels and start making real progress, without burning their people out in the process.
As founder of Berriault & Associates and creator of the Stop Competing™ System and Evolutionary Agilist™ Approach, Jeremy works with leaders across software development, professional services, operations, and small business, in Canada and globally.
His talks don't protect the industry. He names what's actually draining teams' energy: competing priorities that nobody makes explicit, decisions that dissolve after the meeting ends, and leadership systems that depend on heroics rather than design.
He's spoken at Agile2023, QAI QUEST, and leadership events around the world. In 2026, Berriault & Associates was named a Canada's Choice Award winner. Jeremy holds over a dozen certifications across agile, quality, and organizational coaching and brings over 100 years of combined team experience to every room he walks into.
"My first conversation is always about listening, not selling. The same goes on stage."
Ready to book or just want to talk first?
Bring a talk that gives your audience something real to work with. Jeremy customizes every session to the event, the room, and your audience's actual needs.
Book a focused call to describe your event and audience
Jeremy aligns the talk to your theme and format
Your audience leaves with tools they can use that week
Also available: workshops, leadership intensives, and team sessions.
Virtual or in-person across Canada and North America.