Keynotes
Talks about the foundations nobody counts, until they break, and what to do before they do.
One way of seeing, applied to eight different rooms: find what nobody's counting, follow the shock, fix what fails first.
Four signature keynotes for the rooms where the biggest decisions are made: boards, investors, health leaders and the people building AI. Two specialist keynotes for the people who keep workforces and essential systems running. One wildcard for events that want to dream big. And, new for 2027, a talk on climate migration and where people and capital will move next.
Every talk is shaped to your audience, your sector and your part of the world. Each one is available as a keynote, a workshop or a board briefing, in person or virtually.
The Uncounted Method
Most of my talks are built on four steps. They're how an audience leaves with something to act on, not just something to think about.
1. Name the assumptions. Write down what your strategy quietly depends on staying true: stable weather, a reliable grid, on-time deliveries, staff who can always log on.
2. Count the uncounted. Find the dependencies nobody owns or measures: spare capacity, maintenance, nature, and the people absorbing shocks.
3. Follow the shock. Pick one realistic shock and trace, step by step, how it travels to your people, your customers and your cash.
4. Fix what fails first. Strengthen the weakest link first. Then ask who else has the same gap, because that's where the opportunity is.
In a keynote, the four steps are the shape of the story: I take the room through one real shock, step by step, on screen. In a workshop, we fill in a four-column board together (Assumptions, Uncounted, Shock path, First fix) using your own examples. If your event needs a different shape, we'll design it on the call.
Signature keynotes
The End of Normal
Planning for a 3°C World
Many leadership teams are still building for a world that no longer exists, waiting for things to settle down. They won't. Europe is now proposing that governments plan for a 3°C world: roughly double the warming we've already seen, with far more heatwaves, floods and droughts than today's plans assume. The shocks that hurt most are no longer rare disasters. They are frequent, ordinary ones that land on foundations nobody counted. This keynote moves your leaders from bracing for the next crisis to calm, practical clarity: what your plan quietly depends on, what fails first, who owns it, and the one fix to fund this year.
Who it's for: boards, CEOs, leadership teams, and corporate and association retreats.
Your audience will leave with:
- The three assumptions a 3°C world is most likely to break, and how to spot them in their own plans.
- Why every critical dependency needs an owner, and how to find the ones nobody owns today.
- How to choose one fix to fund in the next budget. Not a strategy, a fix.
Priced for Calm
The Hidden Risks in Your Portfolio
Almost every loan and asset was priced for a world where the weather, the grid and the supply chain behaved themselves. They have stopped behaving, and the price hasn't caught up. When insurance retreats, collateral changes, and when collateral changes, so does the loan. This keynote helps investment committees see where borrower, collateral and insurer could fail together, and why making resilience affordable for ordinary homes and small businesses may be one of the most mispriced opportunities of the decade.
Who it's for: investors, private credit and alternative investment firms, pension and sovereign funds, insurers' investment teams, and wealth managers' client events.
Your audience will leave with:
- What underwriting usually assumes about weather, power and insurance, and the questions to test it with.
- A simple way to think about which exposures could fail together in one realistic shock.
- A sharper eye for the companies already selling adaptation, and the gap nobody serves yet.
Side Effects of a Hotter World
Heat, Medicines and the People You Care For
Heat rarely arrives as a disaster. It arrives as ordinary admissions and ordinary claims, and much of the risk sits quietly at home, with older people, people with long-term conditions and people taking several medicines. Drawing on almost a decade in drug safety, I show health systems, hospitals, insurers and pharma companies how to treat heat as a clinical, financial and trust issue, and how to build prevention that reaches people before the heatwave does, not after.
Heat risk depends on the medicine, the person and the conditions. Nobody should stop or change their medicines without advice. That message runs through the whole talk.
Who it's for: health insurers, health co-operatives, hospital and health systems, pharmacy and pharma leaders, and employers who buy health cover.
Your audience will leave with:
- Who is most at risk in a heatwave, and the questions to ask of the data they already hold.
- How heat travels through a health system: medicines supply, cold storage, staff and emergency demand.
- Ideas for a prevention pilot they could run before next summer with their own clinicians and pharmacists.
Everyone Counted the Chips
The Power, Water and People Behind AI
Every AI strategy counts the chips, the models and the use cases. Few count what they stand on: the power, the water and the people who keep things running when systems go dark. In Ireland, data centres now use almost a quarter of the country's electricity, and grids from Amsterdam to Johor are feeling the strain. This keynote turns AI anxiety into a calmer, sharper question for leaders and investors: what does our AI depend on, and who is quietly keeping it running?
Who it's for: AI and technology leaders, boards and risk committees, and data-centre and infrastructure investors.
Your audience will leave with:
- A simple way to see the power, water, connectivity and people behind their most critical AI.
- A 72-hour "AI goes dark" scenario they can take back and run with their own team.
- The questions to ask their providers, and who should own the manual fallbacks.
Specialist keynotes
The Shock Absorbers on Your Payroll
Why Working Carers Are Your Real Continuity Plan
When the heatwave hits, the school closes or the power goes out, someone in your organisation is holding a family together and still logging on at nine. Working carers are the continuity plan nobody wrote down, and many are close to breaking. Drawing on my own family's experience, I help people leaders see carers as load-bearing infrastructure for resilience and retention. Your audience leaves proud of what it could build, not guilty about what it hasn't.
Who it's for: chief people officers, HR, benefits and reward leaders, public-sector employers and group-risk insurers.
Your audience will leave with:
- Simple, confidential ways to find out how many of their people are carers.
- The questions to ask of their continuity plan about who can turn up in a crisis.
- One practical change they could make before next summer.
When Essential Systems Fail
Food, Water and Power as Economic Security
From Stockholm to Brussels, governments are asking households to cope alone for at least three days. In the Gulf, a disruption to shipping through one strait made food a security question overnight. The front line is the supermarket shelf, the tap and the plug socket. This keynote treats food, water and power as economic security, not someone else's department. It traces one shock through the people you serve and shows why affordable community resilience is one of the decade's great building opportunities.
Who it's for: governments and resilience agencies, utilities and grid operators, infrastructure owners and investors, food and retail leaders, and property and small-business insurers.
Your audience will leave with:
- The questions to ask about which routes, suppliers and connections their service assumes will always be there.
- How a 72-hour outage travels through their customers, starting with the most exposed.
- Ideas for one fix to fund, and how to offer it to customers as a simple, affordable service.
The wildcard
The 2075 Balance Sheet
Opening the Accounts We Hand Our Grandchildren
Someone who is 25 today will retire around 2068, so every long-term investor and board is already managing money for the world of 2075. This wildcard keynote is staged as the reading of the world's accounts in 2075: the assets our grandchildren will thank us for, the liabilities they'll inherit, and the items we never put on the balance sheet at all. It closes with the auditor's opinion. True and fair, or qualified? The room decides.
Who it's for: pension and sovereign funds, family offices, endowments, long-horizon boards, retreats, anniversaries and after-dinner slots.
Your audience will leave with:
- A new way to talk about the long term that feels hopeful, not heavy.
- One "off-balance-sheet" item (nature, maintenance or care) to put on the next board agenda.
- The question that lingers: what will our name be on in the assets column?
New for 2027
Where Will Everyone Live?
Climate Migration and the Future of Real Estate
The summer before the Los Angeles fires, insurers had already started leaving Pacific Palisades. That's how climate migration really begins: not with boats, but with renewal letters. From Jakarta to Mumbai, Miami to Dubai, insurance, heat and water are quietly redrawing where people will live and what property is worth. Most of that movement will be within countries, gradual and predictable. This keynote shows developers, investors, lenders, insurers and city leaders how to read the new map early: which assets will stay insurable, where people will arrive, and what to build for them.
Who it's for: property developers, REITs and real estate investors, mortgage lenders, property insurers, and city and regional governments.
Your audience will leave with:
- One test for every asset and deal: will it still be insurable, at a price people can pay, in 2040?
- How to read where people in their own markets are likely to leave, and where they'll arrive.
- The arrival-city opportunity: affordable, cooled, flood-ready homes where people are already moving.
Something different?
If your event needs a talk that isn't on this page, I'm happy to build one. Some of my favourite work has been for rooms I'd never spoken to before. My job is to understand what a room is worried about and what it hopes for, then tell it a story about the future it can use.
Bespoke talks are scoped on a short call. Tell me about your audience, your theme and your part of the world, and I'll tell you honestly what I'd bring.
Formats
- Keynote. 10 to 60 minutes, with or without Q&A. With slides, or without them for rooms that ban slides.
- Workshop. Half a day or a full day, built around the Uncounted Method, using your own examples.
- Advisory and board briefings. A focused session for a board, investment committee or leadership team, under your confidentiality terms.
- Panel and moderation. As a panellist, or as the moderator who keeps it honest and on time.
- Media briefing. Background or on-the-record briefings for journalists and editorial teams.
- Writing and reports. Writing or contributing to white papers and reports for your organisation.
In person or virtual. Worldwide.
Virtual keynotes
I'm just as at home on Zoom, Teams or your own event platform as I am on stage. Virtual keynotes keep the same stories, the same Uncounted Method and the same live interaction, through polls, chat questions and a live Q&A, sized to fit an online audience's attention. They're also an easy way to bring a global perspective to a team spread across time zones, without anyone getting on a plane.
I present from a dedicated set-up with a good camera, microphone and wired internet, and I'm happy to do a tech check with your team a few days before.
Short-notice keynotes
Lost a speaker? I can sometimes step in within seven days, including international travel. A short-notice premium applies. Book a call or get in touch and mark it urgent.
Questions organisers ask
Why you, rather than another futurist? I've had an unconventional career, across academia, startups and complex global organisations, and my brain likes to look beyond the usual boundaries and silos. So I bring ideas from other countries and other sectors that your people won't have heard before. The talk is never about me or my ideas. It's a story that takes your audience on a ride into the future and changes how they feel about it. And I never give the same keynote twice: every talk and every slide is built for your event. Your audience leaves inspired, better informed and convinced that, whatever their role, they can change something when they're back at work the next day.
What's your fee? It depends on the format, location and tailoring. After a short scoping call, I'll send a clear quote within one working day.
Can you tailor a keynote to our sector and region? Yes, and you choose the mix. Many clients book me for a global view: ideas and examples from other countries and other sectors that their people won't have seen. Others want a talk tightly focused on their own sector and region. We'll agree the balance on the scoping call.
How far ahead will the talk look? You choose that too. Some clients want the next 18 months to three years, down to what to do next month. Others want 10 or 20 years ahead. Some want a talk that throws off every constraint and imagines what's possible in 25 years' time. We'll set the horizon on the scoping call.
How far ahead should we book? Three to six months is ideal for conferences. For board briefings and retreats, a few weeks is often fine. For emergencies, see short-notice keynotes above.
Do you travel? Yes. I'm based in London and speak worldwide, and I'm happy to arrive the day before long-haul events. I've spoken in more than 20 countries and travelled to 61, so I'm at home with different cultures and ways of doing business.
Can you speak virtually? Yes, on Zoom, Teams or your own platform, with a tech check beforehand.
Do you work with bureaus? Yes. Bureaus and agencies are very welcome.
Can we record the talk? Usually, yes. Let's agree how it'll be used when we talk.
Let's find the right talk for your room
Thirty minutes, no obligation. I'll ask about your audience and what you want them to feel and do, and I'll tell you honestly which talk fits.
On stage since 2013
Keynotes in 20+ countries · Top leadership of Unimed, Brazil, at their annual retreat · TEDx speaker · Almost a decade in drug safety at GSK · Capitol Hill day in Washington DC with Our Planet, Our Health
I've spoken for
Cedars-Sinai · Mayo Clinic · UCLA Health · GSK · Pfizer · Merck · IQVIA · 3M · Unimed · Virtual Medicine conference (Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles) · Health Datapalooza (Washington DC) · eHealth Queensland · Radical Health Festival (Finland) · PHUSE Connect · Internetdagarna (Sweden) · START Summit (Switzerland) · USC Body Computing · MIT Technology Review EmTech Europe · TEDx Porto · TEDxNHS · TEDx St Peter Port
What organisers say
"Maneesh has a rare ability to see the big picture of healthcare's future as it is actively unfolding, integrating data, technology, and human insight to make sense of extraordinary complexity at exactly the moment leaders need that clarity. His talks consistently rank among the highest in our curriculum, spark sustained discussion long after the sessions end, and fundamentally reshape how clinicians, students, and health-system leaders think about the future." — Brennan Spiegel MD, MSHS, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, Author of PULL and VRx, Cedars-Sinai
"Maneesh is an outstanding keynote speaker about the future of health and wellbeing, with clarity and depth. He spoke at two events that I organise and the audience feedback was unanimously positive. His ability to connect complex ideas into a coherent and meaningful story ensured that his contribution was not only engaging but genuinely valuable for all those in attendance." — Norberto Amaral, Organiser and Curator, TEDx Porto
What people posted afterwards
"Maneesh made the future feel closer than expected." — Lisa Gualtieri, global health and AI educator, on his Jan 2026 talk on human augmentation for the Cedars-Sinai MSc in Health Systems · See the post
"Maneesh Juneja gives an excellent keynote at the PHUSE EU Connect in Strasbourg… on the use of (autonomous) AI in innovating clinical development." — Mark Lambrecht, Global Head, Health Care and Life Sciences Solutions, SAS · Nov 2024, audience of 700+ · See the post
"Inspiring keynote by @ManeeshJuneja on #GenerativeAI and how and if this could benefit patients." — Rasu Shrestha MD MBA · Health Datapalooza, Washington DC, Feb 2023 · See the post
Closing keynote on planetary health and healthcare's carbon footprint, Radical Health Festival Helsinki, 2024 · See the post
"I found your talk one of the most inspirational ones at the entire conference!" — A student at START Summit, St. Gallen, 2018 · See the post
Also featured
Featured in Netflix's The Future Of · Annual guest lecturer on AI in medicine, Cedars-Sinai MSc programme, since 2020 · Chapter on health and wellbeing in Samsung UK's report on life in 50 years' time · Featured in NVIDIA's State of AI in Healthcare and Life Sciences report
Writing and press: Capital Club Dubai · Compass (Association of Professional Futurists) · Samsung UK · Slate · TechRadar · mHealth · BMJ · Diabetologia