Some talks inform.
The best ones disturb.
In a good way.
The kind where you recognize something in yourself you hadn't named yet — and leave feeling more connected, more grounded, and quietly certain that something has to change.
That's what happens in Unni's talks.
Unni Turrettini spent almost a decade in law and finance before hitting a wall she couldn't explain. She had built everything she was supposed to want — and felt nothing.
What she discovered on the other side became the foundation of her work: that the highest-performing people in any room are often the most disconnected. And that the gap between achievement and fulfillment is not a strategy problem.
It's a survival mode problem.
She speaks at leadership summits, executive offsites, and global conferences on what it actually costs to perform at the top — and what becomes possible when leaders shift out of survival and into something steadier.
Her work has been featured by the BBC, ABC, FOX, The Huffington Post, and the NY Post. She was named one of 22 Women to Watch by Brown Brothers Harriman. Her third book, Soulware, is forthcoming from Amplify Publishing.
As featured in
BBC · ABC · FOX · C-SPAN · HuffPost · NY Post · The Spectator · TRT World · VOA
Keynote Topics
From Survival Mode to Creator Mode: Sharper Decisions Under Pressure
Senior leaders make worse decisions when they slip into survival mode, and most do not notice it has happened. Drawing on neuroscience and over a decade of work with C-suite leaders, Unni walks audiences through the practical difference between survival-mode decision-making, which is reactive and narrow, and Creator Mode decision-making, which is clear and originating. She then gives them the Creator Mode Framework: a usable practice for catching the shift in themselves and their teams in real time, and recovering judgment under pressure.
Ideal for executive teams, leadership offsites, and senior partner gatherings.
The High Performer's Blind Spot
The work that started Unni's research was the mind of a mass killer. The work that drives it now is the quieter cost of disconnection at the top of high-performing organizations: burnout misread as commitment, attrition mistaken for "talent dynamics," and decisions that drift from sharp to reactive without anyone noticing. This keynote names the early warning signs, explains the neuroscience of why high achievement erodes self-connection, and walks audiences through Unni's High Performer's Blind Spot Assessment: a diagnostic for spotting disconnection in senior leaders, including in themselves, before the cost compounds.
Ideal for boards, executive teams, and leadership development programs.
Soulware: What AI Can't Replace
Strategy is no longer a competitive edge. AI is making it cheap and abundant, available to anyone with a subscription. What separates the leaders who win in this decade, Unni argues, is something AI cannot give them: a strong internal signal, the kind they can still hear clearly under noise and pressure. Drawing on themes from her forthcoming book, "Soulware: The High Achiever's Guide to Self-Connection in the Age of AI," this keynote explains why distraction and AI are accelerating a quiet crisis at the top, where senior leaders are losing contact with what they actually think, feel, and want even as their access to data multiplies. The session uses Unni's High Performer's Blind Spot Assessment to surface where leaders are most vulnerable to drift in an AI-saturated environment, and gives audiences a clear read on which inner capacities to develop in themselves and their successors before AI reshapes the org chart.
Ideal for AI conferences, technology and professional services firms, and the future-of-work circuit.
Why the Strongest Leaders Are the Loneliest
Loneliness at the top is one of the most common experiences in senior leadership and one of the least named. It is also one of the most expensive. Isolation skews judgment, narrows the people a leader trusts, and shows up as decisions made without the dissenting voice that would have caught the flaw. This keynote draws on Unni's decade of research into disconnection and her work with high-performing clients to name what most leadership conferences avoid. The session walks audiences through Unni's High Performer's Blind Spot Assessment to surface where loneliness is already affecting their judgment, and leaves them with a usable practice for rebuilding the kinds of relationships that hold senior decision-making honest.
Ideal for leadership conferences, executive retreats, and organizations addressing senior-leader retention and culture.
Testimonials
“Unni’s keynote was a welcome inspiration and call to action for senior communicators — blending strong evidence, evocative examples, and practical tips. Unni has that unique ability to speak to both the practical mind and the underlying heart.”
“One of the most engaging and inspirational sessions in a long while.”
Book Unni for Your Event
Unni speaks at a limited number of events each year. To discuss your event — including date, format, and audience — reach out directly.