Comedian & Corporate Facilitator | Founder, Jittery Citizens
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Ullman uses improvisation to make team behaviour visible and available for practice. Her work is relevant to organisations trying to improve creative collaboration, help people speak with greater confidence and reduce the fear of getting something wrong that can inhibit participation and experimentation.
Ullman explores the human behaviours that become more consequential as AI changes work. Improvisation provides a way to practise judgment, interpersonal risk-taking and creative collaboration. The session connects humour with a team's ability to think aloud, question an idea and remain productive when neither the process nor the answer is settled.
Experimentation requires a different response to mistakes from routine delivery. Ullman uses comedy and improvisation to examine how teams can acknowledge a failed attempt without making failure a personal identity. The session focuses on listening, adapting and learning together, with practical relevance to innovation and work under changing conditions.
Drawing on her move between comedy and the Mrs South Africa pageant, Ullman examines self-belief, identity and resilience. The session considers what happens when people enter unfamiliar environments and encounter expectations about how they should present themselves. Its leadership relevance lies in finding a credible voice while remaining willing to learn.
The principles of improvisation offer a practical lens on communication and uncertainty. Ullman explores how attentive listening, accepting a contribution and building a response can change an interaction. The session uses participation to examine habits that support more flexible thinking and more constructive relationships in both professional and everyday situations.
Claudine Ullman is a comedian, writer and corporate facilitator who applies improvisation and storytelling to communication, creativity and leadership. The founder of Jittery Citizens, she works under the Chief Comedic Officer identity, connecting the demands of live performance with the behaviours that help people work together when there is no complete script.
Her professional background spans stand-up, performance direction and comedy writing. It includes performance direction contributions to Netflix's Only Jokes Allowed and Showmax's Trippin' with Skhumba, alongside writing for Bantu Hour. She has also presented at TEDxJohannesburg and developed corporate sessions around confidence, improvisation and resilience. A separate strand of her speaking draws on her experience in the Mrs South Africa pageant, using the move between comedy and pageantry to examine identity, failure and self-belief.
Ullman's distinctive contribution is to use comedy as a setting for behavioural practice. Improvisers must listen, respond to what another person contributes and keep working when an idea does not land. Her Humour Advantage approach carries those demands into organisational life, where hesitation, status concerns and fear of embarrassment can prevent people from testing ideas or speaking candidly. The exercises make those patterns tangible.
For leaders, this creates a practical connection between culture and conduct. A stated commitment to innovation is less useful if people are reluctant to contribute unfinished thinking. Ullman's work addresses that gap through participation, showing how the habits of a rehearsal room can inform more open communication, constructive experimentation and a stronger sense of shared responsibility within a team.
Comics Choice Awards Keynote: The Headliner Framework
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