Fahd Alhattab

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• The David Playbook

  How small teams outmaneuver bigger, slower rivals — and how any team can play like one.

  Why do Davids win when they shouldn’t? The giants have the budget, the brand, the head start — and yet, again and again, a small, scrappy team rewrites the rules and topples one. The paradox: being small isn’t a weakness. Played right, it’s the advantage.

  In this keynote, Fahd Alhattab reveals how underdog teams beat better-resourced rivals — not by working harder, but by working different. Drawing on a decade studying how scrappy teams win and the research behind his six levels framework, he shows that you don’t have to be a startup to think like one. Inside every big, slow organization are small teams that move fast, decide boldly, and care more — and they’re the ones that change things. The same behaviours work whether you’re a startup taking on an incumbent, a lean department inside a large enterprise, a non-profit punching above its weight, or a public-sector team doing more with less.

  Audience takeaways:

  • Why a small, scrappy team is an advantage, not a liability — in any organization.
  • The slingshot framework: how underdog teams beat bigger, better-resourced rivals.
  • The leadership principles that separate high-performing “Davids” from bloated “Goliaths” — and how to build them into your own team.

• The Hidden Multiplier

  Unlocking the leadership potential already inside your teams.

  Most organizations think their growth problem is strategy, technology, or talent. The uncomfortable truth? It’s their managers. Research shows roughly 70% of a team’s engagement is dictated by one person — and yet most managers are promoted by accident, because they were great at the job, not because they were ever trained to lead. The result is burnout, disengagement, costly turnover, and cultures that feel more like politics than performance.

  In this electrifying keynote, Fahd Alhattab reveals the hidden lever almost every organization overlooks: turning managers into multipliers. Equipped with the right tools, a manager stops just managing tasks and starts multiplying performance, energy, and culture — and that shift works whether you’re scaling a company, running an association, or leading a team in the public or nonprofit sector.

  This isn’t another pep talk about “leading with vision.” It’s a systemized, evidence-based roadmap for building leadership capacity at every level, delivered with the storytelling and humour that earned Alhattab the Most Entertaining Speaker award.

  Audience takeaways:

  • A six-step system any manager can use to create “1+1=3” team performance.
  • How to diagnose and escape the hidden dysfunction traps quietly stalling teams.
  • A repeatable blueprint for increasing buy-in, engagement, and execution speed.
  • The psychology of team dynamics — and how to use it to your advantage.
  • Why culture isn’t crafted at the top but built in the everyday actions of managers.

• The Six Levels of High-Performing Teams

  Why some teams multiply their impact while others cancel themselves out.

  Why do some teams, with average talent, achieve extraordinary results — while others, stacked with rockstars, deliver less than the sum of their parts? The answer is a deceptively simple equation: 1+1=3. When trust, conflict, purpose, and empowerment align, every person amplifies the others. When they break down, talent cancels itself out in politics and burnout — 1+1=0.

  In this keynote, Fahd Alhattab reveals “The Six Levels of High Performing Teams” — psychological safety, empowerment, effective communication, culture of leadership, purpose, and vision — a model born from research and more than a decade building teams. It’s a blueprint any team member, at any level, in any organization can use, and it works the same for a startup, a Fortune 500, an association, an agency, or a nonprofit.

• Leadership Is a Verb

  Everyday actions that build belonging and impact.

  For too long we’ve been sold the myth of the singular, charismatic leader — the north star who carries the team. But leadership isn’t about titles or waiting for permission. Leadership is a verb. It’s action.

  Drawing on his own journey, from an at-risk immigrant searching for belonging to a teenager who started a March break camp for underprivileged kids, Fahd Alhattab reveals that real leadership begins the moment we decide to show up for each other — through the small, consistent acts that build trust and belonging. This is Alhattab’s most universally relatable talk, and audiences will leave inspired and equipped, whether they’re frontline, manager, or executive.

  Audience takeaways:

  • Why leadership is a verb, not a noun — and how to live it daily.
  • Practical ways to show up as a leader in small, everyday moments.
  • How to break free from the myth of heroic, title-based leadership.
  • The difference between culture and community and why belonging is the ultimate edge.