Most keynote speakers study your job. I had it.
For three years I was Head of People at Venus Aerospace. I took the job because I believed the People function dictates what a company becomes; I left believing it more. There’s no audience I have more to say to than the people who do this work.
Bestselling author of Can I Have Your Attention? · Forbes contributor
The shifts Curt helps
People leaders navigate
I spent three years inside the challenges on this list. Every one of them lands on the People function’s desk first.
The AI rollout is a people problem.
The boards have funded the tools; the workforces haven’t absorbed them. Gallup finds only 12% of employees strongly agree AI has transformed how work gets done in their organization, even as most see personal productivity gains. The difference is the manager: when one champions the change, employees are nearly nine times as likely to say AI has transformed their work.
Why the needle on engagement keeps moving down.
Gallup has engagement at its lowest point since 2020 and prices global disengagement at $10 trillion. Underneath the number: four generations defining a good job differently, hybrid teams that coordinate without connecting, and attention split across more channels than any workforce has ever managed. The lever that still works: teams that actually know each other, working on something they believe matters.
The manager in the middle.
Manager engagement has fallen from 31% to 22% in three years, and managers report more stress and loneliness than the people they lead. Every strategy above them and every anxiety below them routes through the same layer. It’s also the most fixable thing on this list: Gallup’s best-practice organizations hold manager engagement near 79%.
Change with no end date.
The restructures, tools, and priorities used to arrive as projects with finish lines. Now they just arrive. Through major disruption, employees who trust their leadership are 4.5 times as likely to stay engaged, and that trust is earned between the announcements and spent during them.
What people say
“The reviews have been unanimously positive, across the board... Curt absolutely hit it out of the park.”
Inside the Venus culture
“Build the most unique culture in aerospace: a female-friendly organization in the most male-dominated industry in the US.”
When Venus invited me onto the executive team, I asked to run People as well. I had no operational HR background, which everyone was too polite to mention.
What I had was a conviction that who we hired, how we decided, and what we tolerated would matter as much as the engineering.
Three years of hard conversations, values written and then used, offers held together against SpaceX money, and one thorough burnout later, I’d call it the most important work I’ve done.
Press Start above for Curt on the values, in his own words. Below is the full set, the Venus Flight Plan: the values the whole company ran on.
The Venus Flight Plan. Hover a value.
Chart a New Course
Innovative & Curious
We are innovators and pioneers driven by curiosity, exploration, and a commitment to responsible growth.
We solve hard problems – and the thousands of problems within every problem.
Move at Mach 9
Enterprising & Agile
We deploy rapid design cycles engineered by world class performers.
We succeed by doing. We are freed to fail fast...and fix even faster.
Eliminate the Drag
Focused & Efficient
We prioritize people's ability to get work done, and the type of attention it requires.
We avoid internal politics, fight bureaucracy, and eliminate wasteful meetings.
Enjoy the Flight Together
Kind & Humble
We are on this flight together, and all are welcome aboard.
We value the expertise each individual adds to our super team.
Get Back Home
Healthy & Whole
We commit to the rhythms that yield healthy and whole people capable of navigating life's unique challenges.
We value YOU as a part of VenUS.
Want help writing yours? It’s what teams ask about most once we’re talking: mission, values, and operating principles specific enough to change decisions. Start that conversation →
Keynote topics + outcomes
Every program is built custom after a call with your committee. Formats: keynote (up to 90 minutes) · extended and half-day working sessions · closed-door executive session.
It’s Not Rocket Science... It’s Harder
The Venus story told straight through: the first flight, the money that was never certain, and the people work that made both possible.
Know what deserves their attention, stay curious after being right, and hear the truth from their teams sooner.
View on keynotes →Can I Have Your Attention?
Attention decides whether the rest turns into results, and no dashboard measures it.
Protect time for focused work and ask less of their people’s attention.
View on keynotes →Curiosity Under Pressure
Most leadership training assumes the picture eventually clears. This one is for when it doesn’t.
Give teams direction they can act on, and support morale and retention through constant change.
View on keynotes →Let’s talk
Programming an HR event? Building the case for a speaker inside your company? Running an executive team that’s trying to get culture right? Any of those is the right reason to reach out.
First call runs about twenty minutes, no pitch. If it’s not a fit I’ll tell you, and after two decades around this industry I can usually point you to who is.