Keynotes · Workshops · Webinars
Speaking
Executive sessions drawn from the research and frameworks in CEO Cadence — available as keynotes, half-day workshops, and live online webinars.
About the Speaker
David Johnston
MBA, Leadership · Graduate Certificate, Executive Coaching · Certified Executive Coach (CEC) · Certified Health Executive (CHE), Canadian College of Health Leaders
David Johnston is an executive coach and the author of CEO Cadence: The Inner Work of Becoming a Cadence-Based Leader. He spent more than two decades in senior leadership across healthcare, government, engineering, manufacturing and the military before turning to coaching the people who hold those roles.
His talks draw on that work and on the research behind the book: the structural isolation of the top job, the decisions that can’t be delegated, and the internal discipline it takes to lead clearly under sustained pressure. He runs a small executive coaching practice, Human Capital Development Inc., in Ontario.
Upcoming Engagements
Where David is speaking next.
Central Family Forum 2026 — Threads of Life
CORE² Self-Coaching: Tools for Your Journey
Threads of Life supports families affected by a workplace fatality, life-altering injury or occupational disease. Grief is exhausting; advocacy is exhausting; being strong for everyone around you is exhausting. This workshop introduces CORE² — a practical self-coaching framework built on one idea: you matter too. Three simple foundations and a five-step model, so participants leave with tools to protect their energy, recognize what affects them, and stay grounded.
Forum programICF Converge Summit 2027 — International Coaching Federation
Coaching the Weight of the Role: Helping Senior Leaders Find Their Cadence
A session for professional coaches on what it takes to coach the people at the very top — the structural isolation, the non-delegable decisions, and the quiet weight of the role — and how the Cadence framework helps senior leaders steady themselves inside it.
Event details & registrationSignature Keynotes
Four keynotes on the inner work of leadership — open any one to see what it covers.
Each can be delivered as a keynote, a half-day workshop, or a live webinar — and shaped to your people, your sector, and the time you have. Tell me your audience and the outcome you want, and we’ll design the right session together.
Keynote 01 · Flagship
CEO Cadence
The Inner Rhythm of Leaders Who Last
For CEO and executive audiences, leadership conferences, corporate annual meetings, association keynotes
Most leaders respond to a faster, noisier world the only way they know how: move faster, decide sooner, drive harder. Yet acceleration rarely produces wisdom — it strips it away. Drawing on decades of coaching CEOs and senior executives, this keynote makes a counterintuitive case: the leaders who thrive in turbulence do not outpace the storm — they anchor themselves within it. Audiences are introduced to the four movements of the Cadence framework — Awareness, Clarity, Commitment, and Cadence — and to a leadership architecture in which the leader’s steadiness makes coherence possible for the whole organization.
Your audience leaves with: a diagnostic for spotting urgency bias, the clarity-versus-certainty distinction that unlocks stalled decisions, and one cadence practice to implement the week they return.
Keynote 02
The Weight of the Role
The Psychology No One Briefs You On
For CEO peer groups, executive retreats, board and governance events, succession and leadership development programs
There is a moment every senior leader knows but few ever name: the weight settles in. Not stress — something more permanent. This keynote takes audiences inside the hidden psychological architecture of senior leadership — why people change their behavior around a CEO, why the role demands paradoxes that never resolve, and why the weight is a defining feature of the position rather than a failure of the person carrying it. The talk consistently produces a distinctive reaction: relief.
Your audience leaves with: language for the psychological realities of senior leadership, a framework for separating personal insecurity from structural pressure, and sustainable practices for carrying weight without depletion.
Keynote 03
Steady in the Storm
Decision-Making, Crisis, and the Leader the Room Orients Around
For industry conferences, risk and governance audiences, public-sector and healthcare leadership, operational summits
When pressure enters an organization, everyone looks in one direction. The leader’s internal state becomes the organization’s operating climate — proportion or panic, clarity or confusion. This keynote examines what actually distinguishes leaders who decide well under pressure: not more information, but clarity — seeing a situation with minimal distortion, distinguishing what is known from what is assumed, and acting from understanding rather than reactivity. It unpacks the patterns that quietly corrupt executive decision-making, then builds the alternative: the intentional pause, the decision rhythm, and the communication cadence that steadies a system when events are moving fast.
Your audience leaves with: a pre-decision checklist for high-pressure moments, the known/assumed discipline for faster, cleaner decisions, and a crisis-communication rhythm that prevents organizational spin-out.
Keynote 04
The Sustainable Executive
Capacity, Recovery, and Leading Well for the Whole Tenure
For executive wellness and HR leadership events, professional associations, partner and managing-director audiences
The leadership development industry has spent decades teaching executives how to perform — and almost no time teaching them how to last. This keynote reframes personal sustainability as a governance issue, not a wellness perk: a depleted CEO is an enterprise risk. Audiences learn the discipline of capacity management — distinguishing commitment from overcommitment, building rhythms of intensity and recovery, and designing a pace that endures — so sustainability becomes a feature of the system rather than a private struggle.
Your audience leaves with: a personal capacity audit, the commitment/overcommitment distinction to apply to their calendar within a week, and a recovery architecture that fits the realities of a senior role.
For Event Planners Booking materials & emcee introduction
“David Johnston is an executive coach and the author of CEO Cadence. He spent two decades leading inside complex organizations before turning to coaching the people who run them. His talk today is about the inner work of the top job — and why the steadiest leaders don’t outpace the storm, they anchor themselves inside it. Please welcome David Johnston.”
Bulk copies of CEO Cadence for attendees are available. Ask about it.
Private Group Sessions
Not every room needs a keynote.
The Cadence Room is a private working session for five to ten senior people — closed door, no audience, everyone working rather than watching. Firms host it for their own partners and senior team, or as a private event for a hand-picked group of their best clients. Each person leaves knowing where they actually are in their leadership, the one constraint holding them back, and the first practice to change it.
Individual results are never shared — not with the host firm, not with the table. Each person’s report is prepared in confidence, sealed, and handed to its owner. The group conversation works only the room’s anonymous, combined picture.
Sessions run at your offices or a venue you choose, anywhere in Ontario. See how the room runs.
Book a Keynote
Start the conversation — right here.
Tell me which keynote fits, your timing, and what you need next. Your inquiry comes straight to me, and I respond within one to two business days.
Royal Roads University
Certified Health Executive, CCHL
Executive coaching & leadership consulting
Published October 2026