Nola Simon

Most keynote speakers tell your audience what’s changing. I help them see what they’re taking for granted before the change becomes expensive. I work at the pre-decision stage — the window before assumptions harden into strategy, before direction calcifies into policy no one formally approved. That’s where the Assumption-Ground Audit lives. It’s forensic work done while there’s still room to ask the question that changes everything. 17 years inside Manulife and John Hancock — billion-dollar vendor relationships, national innovation work, cross-border Canada-US operations — means I know what institutional thinking looks like from the inside. I’m not an outsider critiquing organizations. I’m someone who watched assumptions build futures from a front-row seat, and left to help others see it before it’s too late to matter. Your audience won’t just hear something interesting. They’ll leave seeing differently.