KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Conflict Facilitator | Strategic Advisor | Author of The Art of Gathering and The Art of Fighting
Fee information first. Availability is normally checked once there is a concrete intention to proceed.
WHY PRIYA
Priya Parker brings the craft of facilitation into conversations that an agenda alone cannot resolve. She helps leaders examine why a group is gathering, whose participation matters and what makes honest engagement possible across hierarchy and difference. Her perspective connects the design of a meeting or event with the quality of the relationships and decisions it supports. For executive teams, event leaders and communities navigating change, she offers a way to address belonging and disagreement together. The central question becomes concrete: what must this particular room make possible, and how should the host create the conditions for it?
KEYNOTE TOPICS
Why do some meetings create participation while others consume attention without moving a group forward? Parker explores the choices behind a purposeful gathering, from defining its reason to deciding who needs to take part. For managers and executive teams, this offers a lens on everyday meetings and consequential offsites. The discussion asks how leaders can use their authority to serve the people and the purpose of the room.
A conference can have a strong programme and still leave its participants disconnected. Parker examines how invitations, group boundaries, opening moments and the role of the host shape the experience people actually have. This perspective is relevant to event leaders, associations and organisations bringing people together around a shared question. It invites a more deliberate relationship between the event's stated purpose and the conversations its format makes possible.
What does disagreement reveal about a team, and when does avoiding it become costly? Drawing on her conflict-resolution practice and The Art of Fighting, Parker explores how groups recognise and engage disputes with greater care. The focus is on the conditions for a consequential conversation, including differences in power and belonging. Leadership audiences can examine the disagreements their own gatherings need to address and the boundaries that conversation requires.
Shared time does not automatically create a shared experience, particularly when people work remotely or bring different identities and expectations to a gathering. Parker considers how hosts can create participation and connection through intentional choices about purpose and process. For distributed teams and communities, the question is how to make people part of the conversation. The discussion connects meeting habits with the wider experience of belonging within an organisation.
Priya Parker is a facilitator, strategic advisor and author whose work explores how groups come together, navigate disagreement and create meaning. Her practice spans executive retreats, organisational gatherings and conversations across communities. She brings a background in conflict resolution to questions that are often treated as matters of logistics: who belongs in a room, how authority is exercised and what people need to engage with one another.
Parker studied political and social thought at the University of Virginia, public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and organisational design at MIT. At Virginia, mentorship from diplomat Harold Saunders helped shape her interest in dialogue across difference. These disciplines inform a practice attentive to power, identity and the wider systems surrounding a group. She has worked with businesses, government agencies, educational organisations and nonprofits on both in-person and virtual gatherings.
In The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, Parker examines the choices that give a gathering its purpose and character. The book looks beyond routine formats to the decisions hosts make about participation, boundaries, invitations and endings. Her approach treats hosting as an active responsibility: a leader shapes the temporary conditions in which people can connect, contribute and address the reason they came together.
Her 2026 book, The Art of Fighting: The Transforming Power of Conflict, extends that inquiry to disagreement. It explores how groups recognise disputes, decide how to engage them and understand the limits of a relationship or collective arrangement. Parker also hosted and executive produced the New York Times podcast Together Apart and has brought her ideas to the TED stage.
For leadership audiences, her work opens a useful conversation about the relationship between meeting design and organisational culture. An executive offsite, a team meeting or a conference can become a place to examine a consequential question, provided its purpose and participation are designed with care. Parker's distinctive contribution is to make the social architecture of that room visible.
CONSIDERING PRIYA?
Send us the event context and we’ll come back personally with the relevant fee information and next steps.
EXPLORE FURTHER
We use essential technologies to run this site. Optional analytics and measurement help us understand and improve how it is used.
