It’s Go Time.
Those moments of choice — when the path forward is anything but certain and there is no playbook — that's Go Time. Joel helps leaders recognize them, own them, and act.
Leadership isn’t expressed by a plan or in a deck. It’s revealed in moments of choice when the path forward is anything but certain. There is no playbook. Those times of choice and decision are what I call Go Time.
Go Time is when driving impact stops being a function, a marketing message, or a cause campaign and becomes a force woven into the fabric of the organization. It is not exclusive to the C-suite. It belongs to anyone who chooses to influence, to champion, to innovate, to build something new and valuable.
Joel brings that idea to life from a place few speakers can claim. With more than two decades as a professor, scientist, engineer, and strategic advisor to organizations from startups to Fortune 500s, he has spent time in some of the most remote places on earth and in boardrooms. He is a systems thinker who has seen firsthand how decisions made in corporate headquarters play out across supply chains, communities, and ecosystems. He has spent his career working to understand why people do what they do and to use that knowledge to help organizations thrive. That work has taken him from conservation in East Africa to the future of the outdoor economy, from building graduate programs from scratch to advising leaders on how to move organizations when the path forward is unclear.
His unique background in engineering, social science, and natural science and life of adventure at the edges of the map shapes what Joel brings to every stage. He speaks on how leaders move from complexity to action, how organizations prepare for the generational forces already reshaping their workforce and customers, and how purpose gets woven into organizational effectiveness and resilience.
A Go Time presents itself every day. Most often it looks ordinary: a response in a meeting, a fresh approach to a problem, the recognition that one story of impact can speak volumes.
When that moment comes for you, and it will, do not wait for the path to be perfectly illuminated.
It's Go Time.
Formats
Keynote
Conference and event keynotes — 30 to 60 minutes. built around what your audience needs to walk away thinking differently about. Tailored to your sector and the conversation you're trying to start.
Campus & Academic
University and graduate program engagements — connecting research, practice, and career.
Executive Workshop
Half-day and full-day sessions for leadership teams. Interactive working sessions with expert facilitation and structure exchange.
Panel & Moderation
Cross-sector panel participation and facilitation for conferences and summits.
Webinars
For distributed teams, professional associations, and industry networks. Focused, substantive, and designed for people who show up because the work matters to them.
In-person and remote options.
Corporate office, retail site, manufacturing facility, or under a baobab tree. Tailored to your needs, your audience.
Signature Talk
It's Go Time
Learn from global leaders working to create business value and make a positive impact. Delivered as an energizing and interactive session loaded with insights, best practices, breakthrough lessons and tips gleaned from their intimate interviews with global leaders across diverse industries who lead their organizations’ sustainability initiatives. The presentation will inspire and inform all professionals working hard to innovate, communicate effectively, and tackle the challenges within their organizations and markets.
What the talk delivers
What moves leaders when there is no playbook.
Over two years, Joel interviewed more than 50+ business leaders across 4 continents at companies including Netflix, Volkswagen Group, Honda, Salesforce, Arcteryx, Avery Dennison, and Walmart. Five themes emerged from those conversations. Make It Personal. Yes-And Mindset. Move the Middle. Dashboard Thinking. Pivot and Persevere. Together they describe what leadership looks like when the moment arrives and there is no framework to reach for. The presentation will inspire and inform all professionals working to innovate, communicate, and tackle the challenges inside their organizations.
Topic Areas
What organizations bring Joel in to talk about.
Each topic is drawn from work in the field, the boardroom, and everywhere in between. Every engagement is tailored to the audience, the sector, and the moment.
Leadership and Organizational Change
Booked by
Corporate conferences
Association keynotes
Executive retreats
What moves people and organizations when the stakes are high and the path is unclear. Drawn from interviews with 50 leaders across 4 continents and behavioral research on why people do what they do.
The Future of Work and Talent
Booked by
HR Leadership
Industry associations
Higher Ed
The generational forces already reshaping who organizations can hire, who their customers are becoming, and what it takes to compete for both. Drawn from direct research and advisory work across industries.
Purpose as a Business Force
Booked by
Sustainability conferences
Brand and marketing leadership
Business forums
How organizations move purpose from a marketing message to something woven into how the business works. Drawn from advisory work with companies from startups to Fortune 500s.
Sustainability as Competitive Advantage
Booked by
Business forums
Brand and marketing leadership
Sustainability conferences
Executive strategy sessions
The organizations winning on purpose are not the ones with the best sustainability report. They are the ones that figured out how to weave it into culture, brand, and strategy at the same time. Drawn from advisory work with companies navigating the gap between sustainability as a function and sustainability as a force that builds market distinction, attracts talent, and creates business value.
The universities winning the talent competition are the ones that figured out how to build programs around what the workforce demands, not what the catalog has always offered. Joel has done it repeatedly, across professional master's programs, undergraduate degrees, minors, micro-credentials, certificates, and continuing education pathways, spanning sustainability, environmental science, data science, business, and more. His work starts with employers, benchmarks peers, identifies gaps, and produces a phased program architecture that institutions can launch and scale. He understands what makes a program competitive in the market, what keeps enrollment strong, what employers are hiring for, and how to close the gap between what students learn and what careers require.
Remaking the Academic Model
Booked by
Higher education leadership
Academic conferences
Workforce development convenings
University innovation initiatives
Ecosystems, Systems, and the Private Sector
Booked by
Impact and conservation conferences
Academic institutions
Executive audiences
What two decades of leading large international projects, field research across four continents, and science and practice that guides governments and organizations around the world, Joel teaches about how decisions made at headquarters play out in communities, supply chains, and landscapes, and what that means for how organizations lead.
What people are saying
Keynote
I've sat through a lot of keynotes. Dr. Hartter’s was the first one where our CEO leaned over mid-session and said, 'we need to act on this.'
-Chief Strategy Officer of a Mid-Size CPG Company
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Interactive Workshop
We had a lot of sustainability projects going but lacked an organizing framework. Joel designed an interactive workshop that helped us stop treating this work as a cost center, focusing our attention on where we could stand out in the market. We walked out with a priority list and a strong business case to bring to leadership.
-VP of Sustainability at an Apparel Brand
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Webinar
Keeping people engaged on a webinar is hard. Joel did it. He made complex data feel relevant and left our members asking what's next. Three organizations reached out afterward wanting to bring him in.
-CEO of an expert network
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Recent Audiences
Joel tailors every engagement to the audience and moment. Reach out to start the conversation.