keynote speaking: positive psychology and the future of work
Founder of Before Nine, Dr Aarti Anhal, offers keynote speaking and conference masterclasses for audiences seeking insight with impact.
With over fifteen years’ experience advising FTSE businesses and serving as COO of a high-growth start-up, Aarti has worked at the intersection of strategy, operational delivery and organisational resilience.
Her early speaking engagements focused on themes including adaptive crisis leadership and organisational readiness, drawing on direct experience of supporting businesses through disruption and complexity.
Over time, it became clear that many resilience and transformation strategies addressed process and structure, but paid insufficient attention to the vital role of people.
In 2017, Aarti founded Before Nine to bridge that gap, combining positive organisational psychology with commercial insight to support sustainable performance.
Today, as work is reshaped by AI, shifting expectations and increasing interdependence between human judgement and automated systems, Aarti’s keynotes focus on helping leaders think clearly about people within that shift.
She speaks on topics including:
Resilience Re-Imagined: Thriving through uncertainty and change
Positive leadership for a complex world
People-powered transformation in the age of AI
Risk Intelligence to futureproof your business
What Great Leaders do differently under pressure
Audiences value her ability to translate psychological insight into language that resonates with senior leaders, managers and professionals alike.
Her style is engaging without being performative, thoughtful without being abstract, and always anchored in practical application.
Speaking engagements include:
Barclays
Global Incident Manager Network
Barts NHS Health Trust
Women’s Network
Business Continuity Institute (BCI)
Keynote Speaker at BCI World Conference & Exhibition
Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD)
Internal Health & Wellbeing Week (Mental Health Awareness Week)
Cushman & Wakefield
i-Suite Leaders Event
Higher Education Business Continuity Network (HEBCoN)
Keynote Speaker, HEBCoN Annual Conference
HSBC
Change & Transformation Network
Scottish Power
Business Continuity Awareness Week Conference
LSE
Keynote Speaker, Professional Services Staff Annual Conference
Hays Plc
'Hays Leading Women' Event
Newham Learning
Keynote Speaker, Annual Headteacher Conference
COWI
Keynote Speaker, International Leadership Summit
Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (ASEE)
Keynote Speaker, Leadership Summit
SSEN Transmission
Keynote Speaker, Safety Health & Wellbeing Conference
Swedish Chamber of Commerce for the UK
People & Talent Forum
Her work spans corporate, public sector, education and professional networks, reflecting the breadth of contexts in which resilient and transformational human-centred leadership is required.
invite Aarti to speak
If you would like to explore how Aarti can contribute to an upcoming conference or leadership event, please get in touch to discuss your audience, objectives and context.
Dr Aarti Anhal spoke at our Leadership Summit and left everyone with a strong sense of the leadership they want to bring to the organisation. Her multifaceted background, from risk and resilience to business development, her wealth of leadership insights and her ability to communicate with impact and wit, left a big impression on our leaders. She used her own hard-earned insights, from settings we could relate to, making her points very impactful. After she finished, one leader said “I should have heard this 20 years ago” and I agree.
COWI
It was a pleasure to work with Dr Aarti Anhal as part of our inaugural alumni conference. Aarti was very conscientious in her approach and diligent in incorporating the feedback from our planning sessions. She was very passionate and knowledgeable about her work, thus enriching our conversations around leadership. During the presentation itself, she authentically connected with the audience and was an integral part of the interactions.”
Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) Programme team, LSE
Aarti’s keynote session at our annual conference was instrumental in the success of the day. She liaised closely with the organising committee to ensure the session was bespoke to the needs of the group. The session was engaging, relevant, stimulating and interactive which generated a number of thought provoking conversations. Feedback has been extremely positive so thank you for your time and thought you put into the keynote.
Newham Learning
Thank you so much for your insights and contribution! We are now some of your biggest fans! The praise from attendees was genuinely first class. ‘Phenomenal’, ‘insightful, ‘fascinating’, ‘inspired’, ‘great speaker’ and ‘enthralling’ being the most frequent adjectives.
Barclays
The keynote from Dr Aarti Anhal was nothing short of incredible - she stole the show. I am quite happy to admit she moved me to tears and the act of being quite emotional combined with seeing my other colleagues made me feel like I wasn't alone. Aarti was a phenomenal speaker, and the talk was so helpful in reminding us of the resilience we have all been showing just getting through the pandemic.
London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE)
We had the pleasure of having a session with Aarti as part of our annual employee kick off event, framing what was coming up in the year ahead. As part of our event , we wanted to have a session focusing on our own self development and looking at how we can be more resilient in this ever changing VUCA world. Aarti ticked all the boxes for us! We all took away some great learnings from her session and it provoked a lot of self-reflection and thinking as people entered the start of 2023.
Alfa Laval UK&I
Aarti gave an absolutely fantastic keynote at our Directorate away day. Everyone in the team took something away from her session and the discussion afterwards reflected this great emotional and personal impact. All the team learnt something about themselves that really resonated. I highly recommend!
NSPCC
