Leadership Speaker

Virtual Brian is an AI-powered leadership coach trained on Brian Hartzer’s 30 years of executive experience and the framework from his book, The Leadership Star. Ask it anything — from handling a difficult team member to building a high-performance culture, navigating a board, or leading through crisis.

Virtual Brian can help with topics including: building high-performing teams, staff engagement, career development, vision and values, effective communication, self-management, crisis management, and navigating office politics.

Simply ask a question or describe a scenario you’re facing. For example: “How can I improve staff engagement?” or “What strategies help when leading through major change?”

Brian Hartzer brings 30 years of frontline executive experience to his keynotes and facilitation sessions — including seven years as CEO or divisional CEO at three of the world’s largest banks. His speaking is grounded in what actually works for leaders managing large, complex teams under pressure, not theory.

Speaking topics

Brian speaks on three core themes:

The Leadership Star Framework — How to build genuinely engaged teams using the five-point Care, Context, Clarity, Clear the Way, Celebrate model. Practical, memorable, and immediately applicable. Suitable for leadership conferences, management offsites, and executive development programmes.

Leading Through Adversity — Lessons from leading during the 2008–2012 Royal Bank of Scotland bailout and restructure, and from managing a 35,000-person organisation through crisis. Brian speaks candidly about what he got wrong as well as what worked, making this one of his most requested sessions.

AI and the Future of Leadership — How large-scale AI adoption is changing the nature of leadership and what leaders need to do differently to engage and retain talent in an AI-augmented workforce. Drawing on Brian’s current role leading AI strategy at Quantium.

Format

Brian is available for keynote presentations, management team facilitation sessions, and leadership conferences. Bulk corporate book orders can be arranged to accompany speaking engagements.

What people say

“Brian Hartzer is that sounding board, sharing his knowledge through the pages of this useful and practical leadership book.” — Kim McKay AO, Director and CEO, Australian Museum

“The Leadership Star is practical, and based on the school of hard knocks, it’s real. It’s a jewel of a book.” — Ram Charan, best-selling author and CEO advisor

To enquire about speaking engagements or facilitating a session for your leadership team, contact Brian here.