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Public
Speaking
Equal parts educator and instigator, David Phillips equips senior leaders and teams to challenge how they see and think. This enables them to spot non-obvious risks and opportunities, and make better decisions when it counts. His keynotes combine sharp insight, disarming honesty, and practical tools that be applied immediately.
Before founding Faster Glass in 2010, David spent six years at Bank of America, where technology, innovation, and Human-Centered Design collided — and occasionally collaborated. Prior to that, he built his career across the U.S. Air Force, public education, and public accounting, worlds that don't usually talk to each other. It's an atypical path, and exactly what makes him effective at helping others connect dots.
Based in Charlotte, David also enjoys being a father, musician, photographer, and gravel cyclist, even as he is often reminded of his amateur status in all four endeavors.
Sample of Speaking Engagements
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Popular Topics
David regularly delivers keynotes and workshops for conferences, leadership summits, and large gatherings seeking thoughtful, practical perspectives on growth, change, and innovation. These talks are proven favorites, refined across conferences and organizations.
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Semi-Precious Illusions
When Certainty Costs More Than Curiosity​
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Some of our most confident beliefs feel like settled knowledge — but many of them shouldn't. Some were true once, valuable enough that we quietly promoted them from assumption to fact and never noticed the world moving on. Others were never quite true at all; we simply held them so long, and so confidently, that they hardened into something we mistake for knowledge. Either way, the result is the same: a semi-precious illusion — a belief we've stopped questioning, defend without noticing, and carry straight into decisions we can't take back.
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Some of these illusions are harmless, even funny — the lyric we've sung wrong for years, the "fact" everyone repeats that was never true. But the same wiring that keeps us certain about small things keeps brilliant, experienced people certain about consequential ones, right up until the moment that certainty costs them. This keynote explores why we're built to hold on, why our own success so often hardens an assumption past the point of questioning, and how a single, learnable shift in mindset helps us catch these illusions in time.
Takeaways:
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A way to tell the difference between a fact and a belief you've simply stopped questioning
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The habit of asking "What if I'm wrong?" before certainty makes the decision for you
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Recognizing how past success can quietly harden an assumption past the point of testing​​
Ideal for: Association meetings, executive forums, leadership development events
Looking vs. Seeing
Why Smart Leaders Miss What's Right in Front of Them
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We don't see the world as it is. We see what we're looking for, what we expect, and what our experience has trained us to notice — and we quietly edit out the rest. That's not a flaw in any one leader; it's how perception works. But in a complex organization, the things you don't see are exactly where the danger and the advantage live.
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This keynote unpacks the distinct forces that shape what registers and what slips by — the things right in front of us that we're not looking for, the things missing entirely that we never think to miss, the quiet assumption that we've already seen enough, and the shared lenses that limit what a whole team can imagine. It reveals why the sharpest leaders often share the same blind spots, and why the view you're missing is usually one you can't generate alone. Then it turns diagnosis into practice: a discipline for catching what's in front of you — by borrowing the sight you don't have — before a competitor, a customer, or a crisis does.
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Takeaways:
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A sharper sense of where your own blind spots are most likely to hide — including the ones you share with everyone around you
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The ability to notice not just what's in front of you, but what's missing entirely
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A practical way to borrow the sight you're missing, and catch a risk or opportunity before a competitor, customer, or crisis does
Ideal for: Annual conferences, strategic planning retreats, leadership summits
It's Not the Mice, It's the Maze
Design Better Environments, Get Better Results.
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When other people's behavior disappoints, our instinct is to fix the people: more training, more accountability, more willpower. But people don't act in a vacuum. They respond to the systems, structures, and incentives around them, most of which were designed by someone, sometime, for reasons no one quite remembers. Change the maze, and the mice behave differently.
This keynote shifts the focus from blaming individuals to examining the environments that shape them. It challenges leaders to see the invisible architecture driving the behavior they're frustrated by, and to redesign it deliberately rather than leave it to accident. When the conditions change, better outcomes follow — not because the people got better, but because the maze finally made sense.
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Takeaways:
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The skill of spotting the invisible systems and incentives shaping the behavior
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A shift from fixing people to redesigning the conditions around them
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A way to change outcomes by changing the environment, deliberately rather than by accident
Ideal for: Leadership summits, HR/OD forums, culture and change initiatives
Ideal Audiences
Senior leaders, people managers, and cross-functional teams navigating change, complexity, and growth
Format Options
Available as engaging keynotes, interactive breakouts, and facilitated workshops, tailored to your audience and context
Audience Feedback
“The speaker was really, really good! He said all the things that my team has been debating and worrying about. Our table had an incredible conversation. It was so good!”
- AvidXchange Tech Summit
“Very engaging! Storytelling was great and made the content real and relatable.”
- CPCC Keynote Presentation
“It was a great experience. One of the best seminars I’ve been to in my business career.”
- PDMA Conference Presentation