Speaking…honest conversations for complicated times.
Keynotes, fireside conversations, and workshops for women's events, midlife and life-stage conferences, and entrepreneurship festivals.
Available for in-person and virtual events across the UK and internationally.
Why Jodie
Most speakers on leadership and business growth talk about what they've achieved.
Jodie talks about what it actually costs — and what to do with that.With 20+ years inside corporate organisations, two businesses built from scratch, and a coaching practice working with founders and managers at the sharp end of growth, her talks draw on real experience rather than theory.
She discovered mid-life ADHD and brings that perspective directly into her work, not as a vulnerability story, but as a lens on how high-performing people actually function.
Direct. Honest. No motivational performance.
The kind of talk people are still thinking about on the drive home.
Signature talks
Each talk can be delivered as a keynote, fireside conversation, or workshop. All are available in person or online.
What Nobody Told You About the Second Half
The midlife reinvention nobody posts about — and why that's exactly the problem.
You did everything right. You built the career, stayed the course, kept showing up. And then somewhere around your forties — or maybe a little before, or a little after — something shifted. Not a crisis. More like a quiet, persistent question: Is this still it?
This talk is for anyone who has spent 20-plus years building someone else's vision and is starting to wonder what it would look like to build their own. It's about the moment the identity you worked so hard to construct starts to feel like a costume — and what happens when you decide to take it off.
Jodie left a long corporate career to build two businesses from scratch, in her forties, discovering her ADHD, a family, and no guarantee it would work. This is the honest version of that story — not the pivot post, not the LinkedIn announcement, but the part that comes before and after both of those things.
Best suited to: Women's conferences and festivals, midlife and life-stage events, entrepreneurship and founder events, wellbeing and personal development programmes, business networks.
Format:
Keynote (30–60 min) · Fireside conversation (30 min + Q&A) · Workshop (90 min with exercises)
The Symptom Nobody Named
On perimenopause, ambition, and the years nobody warned you about.
There is a version of your forties that nobody puts in the brochure. The brain fog that makes you question your competence. The anxiety that arrives without a reason. The exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. The creeping sense that you are somehow less — less sharp, less certain, less yourself.
For a lot of women, this is perimenopause. And for a lot of women, it arrives in the middle of their most ambitious decade.
This talk names what is usually left unnamed. It is not a medical talk and it is not a wellness talk. It is an honest conversation about what it feels like to be navigating a significant hormonal shift at the same time as running a business, leading a team, raising a family, or simply trying to hold your own life together — and what changes when you finally understand what's actually happening.
Jodie was building her businesses and coaching clients through their biggest professional moments while navigating perimenopause herself. She brings that experience directly into this conversation — not as a cautionary tale, but as the version of the story that actually helps.
Best suited to:
Women's events and conferences, wellbeing at work programmes, midlife and life-stage events, female founder and entrepreneur events, health and lifestyle festivals.
Format:
Keynote (30–60 min) · Fireside conversation (30 min + Q&A) · Panel guest
Stop Performing, Start Building:
The honest version of what it takes to leave the career and build the life.
The highlight reel version of leaving a corporate career to build something of your own — the pivots, the breakthroughs, the "I just knew" moments — bears almost no resemblance to what it actually feels like from the inside.
This talk is the version nobody posts about. The fear that sits alongside the excitement. The identity loss that nobody warns you about when you hand in your notice. The moment you realise that the skills that made you successful in someone else's organisation don't automatically translate into running your own. And the slower, quieter process of figuring out who you are when the job title is gone.
Jodie built The Complicated Coach and Complicated Co. while navigating ADHD, perimenopause, family life, and the invisible weight of starting from scratch in her forties. This talk is for anyone who is building something — or thinking about it — and wondering why it doesn't feel the way it was supposed to.
Best suited to:
Entrepreneurship and founder events, business networks, accelerator programmes, women in business conferences, life-stage and reinvention events, chambers of commerce.
Format:
Keynote (45–60 min) · Panel guest · Workshop (90 min with exercises)
Jodie works with event organisers globally. Virtual keynotes and online fireside conversations are available for international events and conferences — get in touch to discuss your event.
I work with event organisers, conference producers, and programme leads who are looking for a speaker with something real to say — not a polished performance, but a conversation that actually lands.
My talks are best suited to events where the audience is navigating a life or career transition: women in their forties and beyond who are questioning what comes next, founders and professionals who have spent years building in someone else's system and are starting to wonder about their own, and anyone sitting with the quiet pressure of a life that looks fine from the outside but feels more complicated on the inside.
If you're programming a women's conference, a midlife or life-stage event, a wellbeing or personal development day, an entrepreneurship or founder festival, or a corporate wellbeing programme with a genuine commitment to honest conversation — this is the kind of talk your audience will still be thinking about on the way home.
I don't do motivational performance. I do the version that's actually useful.
Speaking fees vary depending on format, audience size, and travel. I work with organisations of all sizes — from internal team sessions to large conferences. To discuss your event and check availability, use the form below
Who it’s for
