Curt Steinhorst

While others optimize for AI, speaker Curt Steinhorst Ignites The Human Advantage. Curt's keynotes bridge the gap between AI potential and human adoption. He helps leaders protect what technology can't replace: focused attention, genuine curiosity, earned trust, and the shared purpose that drives results.

Curt Steinhorst has spent nearly the last 20 years helping leaders navigate the collision between human capability and technological acceleration. He saw it coming. Before ChatGPT, before AI anxiety, before "prompt engineering" became a job title, Curt identified the deeper pattern: technology doesn't just change what we do—it changes how we think. Today, his frameworks for protecting human judgment while leveraging machine intelligence guide leaders through the question that defines our time: How do we use AI without losing our ability to think without it? That work has opened numerous doors to work with some of the greatest companies and most effective leaders in the world. +

The world moves fast, Curt Steinhorst helps your business move faster. He is a force of perpetual motion whose insatiable curiosity and relentless drive have become his professional hallmarks. Where others see established processes, Steinhorst sees opportunities for reinvention. Where industry veterans identify constraints, he discovers breakthrough possibilities. His high-velocity perspective — combining strategic insight with fearless creativity — has made him a trusted advisor to some of the world’s most innovative companies and a secret weapon for leaders looking to turn speed into their greatest advantage, transform challenge into opportunity, and build agile, high performing teams.

Since founding his first business in 2011, Steinhorst has consistently been at the forefront of transformative projects. In 2013, he joined North America’s largest generational research firm, where he honed his ability to interpret and anticipate workplace trends. Today, he is a senior executive with Venus Aerospace, where he drives strategy and innovation in hypersonic technology, aiming to revolutionize global transit.

Steinhorst is also a regular Forbes contributor and the bestselling author of Can I have Your Attention? He spent years observing and researching human attention and its effects on the workplace, which led him to helping leaders implement organizational strategies to keep their people working and increase focus. This continues to be the foundation of his work today.

A highly respected conference speaker, Steinhorst has delivered over 500 keynotes across four continents, with clients ranging from AT&T, Deloitte, and JPMorgan Chase to the US Naval Academy. Known for his humour, empathy, and willingness to tackle challenging topics, his dynamic presentations on high-velocity leadership, communication under pressure, and operational excellence inspire leaders to break free from outdated paradigms and embrace a faster, more agile approach to leadership and innovation. --

Curt Steinhorst's keynotes are designed to protect attention, ignite curiosity, and elevate human value in an AI‑driven world. 

The Human Advantage™ Defining What Stays Human in an AI World +

AI can process. It can predict. It can even create. But it can't notice what matters in the periphery. Ask the question behind the question. Imagine what doesn't yet exist. Discern meaning from noise. Create from conviction. Release what no longer serves.

As AI handles knowledge work, the deeper question emerges: What stays human? Not which tasks to protect, but which capabilities become more valuable as machines become more capable. The answer requires something machines don't have: The attention to see what others miss. The curiosity to question what others accept. The courage to create what doesn't yet exist.​

These aren't soft skills—they're the hardest skills of all, and they become more valuable as technology scales.​

The Human Advantage explores how leaders cultivate what stays human—not as nostalgia for the past, but as strategy for the future. You'll discover why these human capacities multiply in value as AI advances, and how to develop them systematically.

Key Outcomes:

• A framework for identifying which human capabilities multiply in value as AI scales
• Specific practices to develop attention, curiosity, and courage across your organization
• Tools to build these capabilities into your talent strategy and daily operations
• A clear competitive advantage that technology can't replicate

Build sustainable competitive advantage by developing what AI can't replicate—the human capabilities that become more valuable as technology advances. --

The Human Equation™ Getting the Messy Part Right +

Organizations are complex human systems, not machines—yet watch any transformation kickoff and count how many times you hear 'optimize,' 'streamline,' 'standardize.'

Human dynamics aren't obstacles to transformation. They ARE the transformation—the invisible forces that determine whether anything actually changes.​

Who loses power. Who gains budget. Whose work becomes obsolete. Who gets blamed if this fails. Who gets credit if it works.​

These unspoken calculations happen in every meeting, drive every decision, determine every outcome. They're not side effects of transformation—they're the main event. The same political dynamics that protect the status quo also determine who champions change.

This session reveals what actually determines transformation success: How to shift from self-preservation to curiosity, from territory to exploration. Because organizations don't change through force of will or perfect planning—they change when humans decide to.

Key Outcomes:​

• The hidden dynamics that make or break your transformation—and how to spot them early
• A practical framework for turning resistance into momentum
• Specific techniques to shift your organization from protection to curiosity
• Clear indicators that separate real change from compliance theater

Transform your transformation success rate by solving for what actually matters—the human dynamics that determine whether strategy becomes reality. --

It’s Not Rocket Science
The Playbook for High-Performing Teams in High-Pressure Environments +

Rocket science is hard. Building a team that can deliver at pace without breaking what matters is a different kind of hard.

As a senior executive at Venus Aerospace, Curt helped lead a team literally building rocket engines that could cross the Pacific in under two hours—and the human challenge matched the technical one: sustain speed, keep judgment sharp, and stay aligned when timelines, expectations, and complexity all rise at once.

Most organizations answer pressure with more hours, more meetings, and more urgency. That buys days but costs months—because speed exposes hidden fault lines. When time for the real work isn’t protected, it gets crowded out by noise. If decisions don’t have a clear owner and a firm deadline, momentum either grinds to a halt or veers wildly. If expectations aren’t clear, confidence erodes and the best people disengage.

This session shows leaders how to spot those fault lines early and respond in ways that keep pace and standards—without adding layers of bureaucracy or relying on heroics. The result: a team that moves fast on purpose, and keeps moving after the first burst.

Key Outcomes:​

• A proven framework for leading with clarity under extreme speed and pressure
• Core principles for preventing burnout while sustaining high performance
• Simple, repeatable strategies for communicating effectively in chaotic moments
• A fresh perspective on how to scale culture without losing what makes it work

Scale at speed without burning people out or breaking what matters --

The Human Edge
What Separates Leaders Who Unlock Transformation from Those Who Stall It

This keynote equips executive leaders to lead through complexity by engaging new tools—like AI—with sharper attention, better conversations, and a posture that invites learning. Curt Steinhorst reveals why adoption doesn't start with strategy decks or IT pilots—it starts with what leaders model in the room. +

AI isn't hypothetical anymore. It's already shaping how decisions get made, where risk is spotted, and what people expect from leaders. But in most organizations, the conversation around AI is still technical—focused on capabilities, pilots, and tools. That's not where things break.

This keynote is about the part of AI adoption no system can automate: the human side of leadership. Curt Steinhorst draws from his work with executive teams across industries—including time inside one of the world's most ambitious aerospace startups—to explore how seasoned leaders adjust when new tools outpace old habits.

When the technology is moving faster than organizational trust, success depends more on presence than policy. Drawing on research in neuroscience, sociology, and behavioral psychology, Steinhorst explains how people naturally respond when familiar frameworks meet unfamiliar possibilities—and what leaders can do to create alignment, confidence, and progress. --

Focus is a Leadership Discipline - Mastering Attention in the Age of Distraction +

It's almost as if work was designed to make focus impossible—endless channels, constant urgency, infinite options.

The very tools meant to help us produce more have become the biggest obstacles to producing anything meaningful. The ability to protect and direct attention has become the difference between motion and progress.

We've optimized everything except the one resource that actually matters: human attention. Every tool that promises productivity delivers distraction. Every initiative that should simplify adds complexity. Organizations moving faster while accomplishing less. Leaders managing every minute while their attention splinters across infinite priorities. Everyone knows they're busier than ever while questioning if any of it matters.

This keynote—rooted in Curt's bestselling book Can I Have Your Attention? and deep research into human performance—reveals why focus has become the scarcest resource in business and what to do about it. Because knowing what matters is only half the equation. The other half is creating the conditions where people can actually work on it.

Key Outcomes:​

• The science of focus—what enables it, what destroys it, and how to design for it
• Practical techniques for protecting attention in an interruption culture
• Organizational frameworks that make focused work possible, not heroic
• A shared language for focus that works from the C-suite to the front lines

Stop managing time. Start protecting attention. --

Speaker's Choice: When What You Need is not on the Menu  +

Sometimes, what your team needs most is the thing no one else will say—and no one else has the permission to deliver.

Here's the truth: Curt spends his days thinking about what actually moves organizations forward. Sometimes that's a new framework. Sometimes it's remembering why work should be energizing, not exhausting. Sometimes it's the strategic insight everyone's missing. Or the simple truth that changes everything. When you choose this option, you're saying: "We trust you to step back, look at where we are, and deliver what we actually need to hear."

It might be brand new thinking that hasn't made it to a slide deck yet. It might be a proven idea applied exactly to your moment. It might even be permission to stop doing something everyone thinks is essential. The point is, you're getting what matters most right now—not what was predetermined, but what's actually useful.

Key Outcomes may include....​

• What you didn't know you needed to hear
• Permission to stop doing that thing everyone pretends is working
• At least one idea you'll steal immediately
• A story you'll retell at dinner (and probably claim as your own)

Side effects may include: sudden clarity, uncontrollable honesty, and the urge to cancel half your meetings...--

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