Executive Speaking and Leadership Workshops
State of Mind Strategies offers keynotes, executive briefings, leadership workshops and facilitated working sessions that help organizations connect AI, customer data, digital transformation and technology investment to measurable commercial value.
When leadership teams need more than a presentation
Sessions are led by Zachary Leifer, a Commercial Growth & Transformation Executive who has served as Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Commercial Officer and Vice President, Corporate Information Technology.
Organizations rarely struggle because they lack technology, ideas or activity. The harder challenge is determining where an investment can create value, whether the organization is ready to use it and how success will be measured.
State of Mind Strategies sessions connect strategy with the operating decisions required to produce results. Depending on the audience and objective, an engagement may introduce a new framework, help leaders evaluate an important decision or facilitate a working session that produces clear priorities and next steps.
Every session is grounded in operating experience across commercial leadership, marketing, customer data, digital transformation and enterprise technology.
Engagement formats
Keynotes and Conference Sessions
Executive-level presentations connecting commercial growth, customer economics, digital transformation and AI investment to measurable business outcomes.
Executive Briefings
Focused sessions for leadership teams evaluating an investment, transformation initiative or organizational decision.
Leadership and Working Sessions
Interactive sessions that help teams define the business outcome, assess readiness, clarify ownership and determine how value will be measured.
Board and Investor Sessions
Sessions designed to support board and investor conversations about growth strategy, customer economics, technology investment, AI readiness, governance and value realization.
Core session themes
AI Investment Readiness and Value Realization
AI creates value when it improves a decision, workflow, customer experience or economic outcome. This session helps leaders move from experimentation to a disciplined investment approach built around a defined business outcome, organizational readiness, accountable ownership, appropriate resources and credible measurement.
Topics may include:
- Identifying where AI can create commercial value
- Evaluating readiness before scaling
- Determining where AI should assist people and where automation is appropriate
- Establishing ownership, governance and decision rights
- Connecting implementation to financial measurement
- Building a practical human-plus-AI operating model
Best suited for: CEOs, boards, Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Information Officers, transformation leaders, private equity portfolio companies and cross-functional executive teams.
Customer Data and Customer Economics
Customer data creates value when it changes whom a company acquires, how it serves customers, where it reinvests and how it measures customer economics. This session connects customer data platforms, predictive analytics, personalization and CRM to acquisition, retention, customer experience and lifetime value.
Topics may include:
- Connecting customer data to commercial decisions
- Moving from segmentation to differentiated treatment
- Improving acquisition and retention economics
- Measuring personalization through business outcomes
- Aligning marketing, product, data and technology teams
- Distinguishing platform implementation from commercial improvement
Best suited for: Marketing leaders, customer-experience teams, hospitality and gaming executives, loyalty professionals, product leaders and technology teams supporting customer growth.
Marketing, Technology and Finance Alignment
Growth initiatives frequently cross functional boundaries even when budgets, incentives and accountability remain divided. This session examines how marketing, technology and finance can establish a shared investment case, define decision rights and agree on how success will be measured.
Topics may include:
- Creating a shared definition of the business problem
- Building an investment case that executives and boards can evaluate
- Connecting delivery milestones to commercial outcomes
- Clarifying ownership across functions
- Establishing common reporting and measurement
- Preventing functional success from masking unresolved business performance
Best suited for: Executive teams, leadership offsites, transformation programs, board sessions and organizations navigating complex marketing and technology investments.
AI Discovery and LLM Visibility
Generative AI is changing how customers discover, evaluate and compare companies. This session helps leaders understand how AI-mediated discovery differs from conventional search and what organizations can do to improve their visibility, credibility and accuracy across search engines and AI assistants.
Topics may include:
- How AI systems find and synthesize information
- The difference between rankings, citations and brand mentions
- Entity consistency across owned and third-party sources
- Creating useful, evidence-supported and citable content
- Connecting AI visibility to the broader customer journey
- Measuring discoverability without relying on one prompt or platform
Best suited for: Marketing leaders, communications executives, digital teams, professional-services firms and organizations whose customers increasingly use AI tools for research and evaluation.
What participants leave with
Depending on the format and subject, participants leave with:
- A clearer definition of the business outcome
- A framework for evaluating organizational readiness
- A way to distinguish useful technology from activity
- A clearer understanding of ownership and decision rights
- A practical approach to measuring value
- Greater alignment across commercial and technology leaders
- Priorities that can be translated into action after the session
Led by Zachary Leifer
Zachary Leifer is a Commercial Growth & Transformation Executive who helps companies create more predictable value from data, digital transformation, technology and AI. He has served as Chief Marketing Officer at 1/ST Technology, Chief Commercial Officer at PokerAtlas and Vice President, Corporate Information Technology at Las Vegas Sands.
His experience spans commercial growth, customer data, marketing technology, digital transformation, enterprise technology and organizational alignment. He completed the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program in 2026, where his capstone research examined the organizational conditions that support financial value creation from data, digital transformation and AI.
Customization
Every engagement can be tailored to the organization, audience, industry, format and time available. Customization may include:
- A pre-session discussion with organizers or leadership
- Review of the organization's stated priorities
- Industry-specific examples
- Anonymous pre-event participant questions
- A facilitated exercise
- Extended executive discussion
- A follow-up leadership or advisory session
Customization should improve relevance without requiring participants to disclose competitively sensitive information.
Frequently asked questions
Can a session be customized for our organization?
Yes. Sessions can be tailored to the organization, industry, audience and decisions its leaders are confronting. Customization may include a planning discussion, industry-specific examples, participant questions, facilitated exercises or a follow-up executive working session.
What is the difference between a keynote and an executive workshop?
A keynote introduces a clear perspective and practical framework to a broader audience. An executive workshop is more interactive and applies the framework to the organization's priorities, readiness, operating model and next decisions.
Who are the sessions designed for?
Sessions are designed for executives, boards, marketing and technology leaders, transformation teams, investors and organizations evaluating how customer data, digital capabilities, technology or AI can create measurable value.
Can a speaking engagement include a leadership-team working session?
Yes. A keynote or executive briefing can be paired with a smaller leadership-team discussion or facilitated workshop. This allows the broader session to establish a common framework and the follow-up session to apply it to specific organizational priorities.
Are sessions available in person and virtually?
Yes. Keynotes, executive briefings, panels, workshops and facilitated discussions are available in person or virtually. State of Mind Strategies is based in Las Vegas and works with organizations nationally.
How does an engagement begin?
The process begins with a conversation about the audience, objective, format, timing and business context. State of Mind Strategies then recommends the session structure and level of customization most appropriate for the engagement.
Bring the Conversation to Your Leadership Team
Speaking and workshop engagements are structured around the audience, business context and decision that needs to be advanced.