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Terry Williams (CSP) – Humorous & Engaging Conference Motivational Keynote Speaker & MC
Insightful. Entertaining. Actionable.
Terry Williams (CSP) is an international keynote speaker and conference MC who combines deep leadership expertise with stand-up comedy chops. He delivers high-energy, humorous, and practical presentations on building employee engagement, navigating workplace change, and driving team performance, keeping audiences entertained while ensuring key business messages land and stick.
Engaging, Humorous, and Practical Speaking for Your Next Event With over 20 years of experience as a professional speaker and MC, Terry Williams has facilitated conferences, panel discussions, and awards nights for thousands of attendees across New Zealand. Whether you need an energising MC to hold a multi-day summit together, or a keynote speaker to tackle "Tough Conversations", Terry delivers a seamless experience for event organisers.
"A great MC doesn't just read the script; they set the tone for the entire event. My goal is always to make the organisers look brilliant behind the scenes, while ensuring the audience leaves energised, entertained, and equipped with practical insights." — Terry Williams, Professional Speaker & MC
Looking for an entertaining New Zealand conference speaker or MC who will keep your audience engaged, entertained, and inspired? Terry Williams brings a unique blend of business insights, workplace psychology, and humour to every event, ensuring your audience not only enjoys the experience but also walks away with practical, actionable takeaways.
With decades of experience as a motivational and inspirational business speaker, leadership trainer, and MC in New Zealand, Terry knows how to connect with diverse audiences, making complex ideas accessible, relevant, and fun.
Popular Speaking Topics
Change and resilience / Employee Engagement / Tough Conversations / Frontline workplace leadership in New Zealand
- 2 Dangerous Things A Year - Why should we change? Why don't we change? How can we change?
- The High Cost of Avoided Conversations (and what to do about it)
- Getting Better Buy-In - How to move your people to move with you
- The 3 Elements in Building a Winning Team - Develop a plan based on the team you think you want but starting from where you actually are
- Leadership in a Changing World – How leaders can motivate, engage, and inspire performance across different generations.
- The Psychology of Workplace Success – Practical tools to improve motivation, resilience, and performance in today’s fast-paced work environment.
- The Power of Humour in Business – How to use laughter strategically to build trust, boost engagement, and create a more connected workplace.
Video: '2 Dangerous Things A Year' (Change & Resilience)
As a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) based in Auckland, Terry specialises in delivering motivational keynotes and engaging MC services for conferences across New Zealand and internationally. His sessions are crafted to inspire and equip audiences with practical tools for leadership, resilience, and effective communication. Whether you're organising a corporate event, industry summit, or team-building retreat, he brings a unique blend of humour and insight to ensure your attendees are both entertained and empowered.
Why Book Terry as Your Conference Speaker or MC?
- Humorous & Engaging – Blending business insights with laughter to captivate and energise audiences.
- Custom-Tailored Content – Presentations and hosting designed specifically for your industry and event goals.
- Proven Expertise – Trusted by leading event organisers companies across New Zealand and beyond to deliver engaging, high-impact sessions.
- Professional & Flexible – Whether it’s a high-energy keynote, a panel discussion, or full event MC duties, Terry adapts seamlessly to your needs.
Make Your Next Event Unforgettable
From corporate conferences to leadership retreats and industry summits, Terry adds value to any event by delivering inspiring keynotes and seamless event hosting that ensure your audience is engaged from start to finish.
Need a Dynamic MC?
A great MC does more than introduce speakers—they set the tone, keep the energy high, and ensure everything runs smoothly. Terry Williams is an experienced MC who brings the right mix of humour, professionalism, and audience engagement to keep your event on track and be memorable.
Book Terry for Your Next Event
Availability: Limited dates available—secure your booking now.
Location: An Auckland speaker but available for events across New Zealand & internationally.
Click here to enquire now learn more
"Terry recently MC'd our North Island Road Freight Seminar and Industry Awards Dinner - he was fantastic!" — Lily Linscott, Members & Events Coordinator, Transporting New Zealand
Terry delivers an entertaining and interesting set of practical tools to takeaway and put into practice. He's a trainer originally by trade and his comedy is a means to an end. Terry is an expert, author & motivational speaker on engaging people. He's a trainer and facilitator for over 25 years, and also a columnist in 'Employment Today' magazine. His books, including 'The Brain-Based Boss', take psychological research and makes it interesting and useful for people wanting to engage the people they work with or influence. He's also a comedian, performing in several New Zealand International Comedy Festivals.
As a point of difference, Terry has a combination of a leadership training background, coupled with a sideline as a professional stand-up comedian. Those two elements create content that is practical and relevant delivered in a way that is provocative and memorable. They also often convince event bookers to utilise him as both a keynote speaker, facilitator of a breakout workshop, and/or an MC.
As an example, his presentation on change and resilience got great reviews recently from a wide range of business event audiences such as McDonalds, Robert Half, LIC, Contact Centre Institute, NZ Certified Builders, Cambridge Homes, TSB Bank, RNZAF, and Southern Cross Healthcare.
Terry is a CSP - a Certified Speaking Professional. This is the speaking profession’s highest earned international measure of professional platform competence. With this designation, meeting professionals looking to hire the best of the best see a commitment to the profession, be assured of a top-notch speaking ability, and a track record of professionalism and success. Less than 15 percent of NSA members worldwide have achieved the CSP designation and only 8 other kiwis.
He presents slices of his new book ‘Getting Better Buy-In’ offering practical things that frontline leaders and individuals can actually do to make a difference.
Unforgettable, entertaining, fun, interactive and full of takeaway 'How to's.'
Presentation Topics
2 Dangerous Things A Year: Take charge of change before it takes charge of you
Why should we change? Why don't we change? How can we change? Work out your 'Change Muscles' now so you're ready when you need them later. Should you be worried that you or your team are not prepared for change? Change is inevitable and the rate of change is accelerating. You will learn why most people are unprepared for change. You will learn tools to get past those obstacles, build momentum & muscle through when it's tough. Engaging & entertaining, this distinctive session starts with my own story of doing 2 dangerous things a year, including becoming a stand-up comedian. It flows interactively into a series of practical takeaway tools for anyone to better handle change at work & in life. You'll realise which of the 4 stages of 'change evolution' you're at. Are you stuck in a state of 'change sloth' or 'change strain'? How can I help you move towards being 'change-fit'?
The High Cost of Avoided Conversations (and what to do about it)
Unresolved workplace tension and delayed tough conversations cost businesses millions annually. While traditional leadership workshops teach vital communication frameworks, classroom theory often falls flat because real-world execution carries high social friction and fear of [insert your personal fear here].
Designed specifically for executive leaders and CEOs, this interactive presentation delivers a scalable solution to close the capability gap without a huge investment of time, money and risk. Facilitated by People Engagement Expert Terry Williams, you will discover how to capture your organisation's unique operational DNA and convert inhouse lessons-learnt into dynamic, low-stakes AI ‘Conversation Practice Partners.’ (Like flight simulators but for people skills!)
With 35+ years as a leadership development and people-skills trainer, Terry has seen a lot of time and money spent and a lot of variation in how effective it was in actually making a difference back in the real world of work. People that know stuff don’t necessarily do stuff. Bridging the knowing-doing gap is what this new tool is all about.
What You Will Experience & Learn:
· Calculate Your Evasion Tax: Quantify the hidden costs of leadership avoidance, team drama, and lost productivity in your organisation.
· The Flight Simulator Model: Learn how low-stakes AI roleplay provides a safe runway for managers to practice tough performance conversations anytime, anywhere, without peer judgment.
· Hands-on Character Lab: Map custom operational archetypes, hidden objections, and guardrails to tailor AI voice partners directly to your company's culture.
· Proven Case Studies: Discover how industry leaders like Foodstuffs and Niko transformed manager confidence and normalised proactive feedback using interactive AI simulations.
Stop letting avoided conversations drag down execution speed. Walk away with actionable frameworks and a blueprint to transform your firm's leadership culture.
The First Five Minutes: How to Build Instant Rapport and Influence Any Customer
Most customer service training focuses on processes, scripts, and compliance. Useful, yes. But it ignores the moment that really matters: the first few minutes of human interaction.
That is when customers decide whether they trust you, believe you, and want to keep talking.
In this entertaining and practical presentation, I reveal how skilled professionals accelerate rapport and use naturally influential language to create confidence with customers almost immediately.
Because great service is not just about solving problems. It is about how you show up in the conversation.
Through engaging stories, behavioural psychology, and practical communication tools, I demonstrate how subtle shifts in language, tone, and attention can transform an ordinary interaction into a relationship-building moment.
Your team will leave with simple techniques they can apply the very next time they pick up the phone, walk into a meeting, or respond to a client query.
The result?
- Stronger trust.
- More productive conversations.
- And customers who feel they are dealing with someone who genuinely understands them.
Outline
• Why the first few minutes of a customer interaction shape everything that follows
• The psychology of accelerated rapport: why people decide quickly who to trust
• Listening signals that make customers feel heard (and those that accidentally shut them down)
• Language patterns that increase confidence and reduce resistance
• How to guide conversations naturally without sounding pushy
• Turning routine service conversations into trust-building moments
• Practical phrases and conversational tools participants can use immediately
Who Would Benefit?
• Customer-facing professionals
• Account managers and relationship managers
• Sales and service teams
• Professional advisers and consultants
• Organisations that depend on trust-based client relationships
Getting Better Buy-In – Proven Tools To Build A Workplace Culture That Attracts & Retains Talent.
Have you ever tried to scope the sheer scale of the cost of your staff churn, disengaged employees and turnover? Never mind the recruitment costs, what about all the indirect effects on productivity and morale as people depart, arrive, learn, remake mistakes & institutional knowledge walks out the door with their stapler. It’s a spiral. You do not want a reputation as a poor employer as you know that’ll drive away talented people and, soon after, drive away customers. You want to be running a workplace of choice. If ever a vacancy occurs, it’ll be for the right reasons and talent will beat a path to your door and that’ll magnetically attract more talent. That’s the kind of spiral you do want. But how? You’d like to know what drives these engaged employees. You’d like to know the specific actions you can take to influence the choice of talent to choose you. Tools for managing change and influencing behaviour based on an extensive collection of workplace and psychology research - all told in an engaging style not an academic lecture.
The 3 Elements To Build A Winning Team
Very rarely do we get the chance of a workplace leader to start from scratch and build the team we think we want. More often, we get dropped into a leadership role with a pre-existing team and all their good and bad goings-on. In this hour-long presentation that is chock full of informational tips, engaging interactions, and inspiring provocation, Terry helps you develop a plan based on the team you think you want but starting from where you actually are.
You already know a lot of the things you should be doing but you actually doing them?
Proactive Influence: Leading the Sales Conversation in Hesitant Markets
· Core Theme: Moving from passive order-taking and chasing to proactive relationship leadership.
1. The Mindset Reset: Reactive vs. Proactive Influence
· Breaking the "Market Victim" Loop: How tough years subtly trap teams into waiting for perfect conditions rather than creating opportunities.
· The Psychology of Initiative: Why waiting for client signals puts salespeople on the back foot, and how proactive reach-outs reduce sales friction.
2. The Behavioural Mechanics of Influence
· Shaping the Narrative Early: Using subtle psychological framing so vendors and buyers view your team as trusted advisors rather than transaction hunters.
· The First 5 Minutes: Tactical, brain-based rapport tools to establish authority, warmth, and direction immediately.
3. Proactive Engagement Tactics (In the Field)
· Conversational Hooking: Social science research studies and practical tools from them for you
· Pre-empting Hesitation: Identifying buyer and vendor anxiety points before they turn into hard objections.
4. Sustaining Personal Momentum
· Energy Architecture: Maintaining high proactive input without burning out or taking client inaction personally.
· The 7-Day Influence Sprint: A lighthearted, high-accountability challenge for every rep to execute three proactive influence habits immediately, using AI ‘Conversation Practice Partners’ to generate and practice new behaviours.
Engaging Your People Through Change And Uncertainty
A key with change and adversity is proactivity, doing something, even when the environment is such that you feel powerless. That feeling of powerlessness can drive anxiety and stress. Do something. Be proactive. Take some steps.
- Are change and uncertainty the new normal?
- Why should we assist our people through change and uncertainty?
- How can we help ourselves and our people through change and uncertainty?
The dictionary's first definition of resilience is not about people. It's about manufacturing materials and how quickly they could bounce back from being dropped or damaged. Only later did psychologists tweak the definition to make it about people. Because people were seen as units of production as well.
How can people bounce back to their ability to recover from adversity? That dictionary definition of "bouncing back" is obsolete because if you assume that we are going back to the way things were before but there isn’t a 'before' anymore.
How can we and our people not just survive adversity, but learn from it and come out better prepared for the next inevitable adversity?
Who Would Benefit?
- Senior executives,
- Employers,
- Employer associations,
- Owner / operators of small to medium enterprises
- Team leaders
| Service / Topic | Best Suited For | Style & Vibe | Key Takeaway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conference MC & Panel Moderator | Multi-day summits, industry conferences, and awards nights. | High-energy, professional, and humorous. | Keeps the event on schedule, connects overarching themes, and ensures panels flow naturally. |
| Keynote: Getting Better Buy-In | Corporate events focusing on change management and employee engagement. | Insightful, interactive, and practical. | Actionable psychology-based tools to engage teams through change and uncertainty. |
| Keynote: Tough Conversations | Leadership retreats and management training days. | Direct, relatable, and safe. | Frameworks to stop avoiding conflict and give leaders a common language for feedback. |
| After-Dinner / End of Year Speaker | Corporate Christmas functions, galas, and celebrations. | Entertaining, light-hearted, yet insightful. | A memorable, laugh-filled wrap-up to the year that leaves the team feeling connected and appreciated. |
