Matthew Luhn
Most leadership messages get heard, then forgotten by the next meeting. Strategy decks, town halls, brand campaigns and customer pitches compete for attention against everything else employees and buyers see in a day. The discipline of building a story that an audience can repeat, and wants to repeat, is rarely treated as a serious business skill, even as it decides whether a strategy lands or stalls.
Matthew Luhn is a former Pixar story artist who teaches leaders, brand teams and innovators how to build the kind of stories that move customers, employees and investors to act.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Matthew Luhn
- He spent more than 20 years inside Pixar’s story room, working on Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Up and Ratatouille, so the principles he teaches are the ones that actually shipped some of the most commercially successful films ever made.
- His book The Best Story Wins (Morgan James, 2018) gives buyers a named, documented methodology, not a generic storytelling pitch. Teams leave with a structure they can apply to a keynote, a sales call, or a brand campaign.
- He is one of very few speakers who has been inside a working creative culture at scale, and can speak credibly to how Pixar’s Braintrust process produces honest creative feedback without breaking trust.
- His client list on this material includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Capital One, Procter and Gamble, Sony and Target, which signals that senior brand, marketing and innovation leaders are the audience he is built for.
- He treats storytelling as a commercial competency, not a soft skill. The work is aimed at sharper messaging, stronger brand recall, and better internal communication of strategy.
Biography highlights
- Story artist and story supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios across more than two decades, with credits on Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, Up, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University.
- One of the original 12 animators hired on the first Toy Story film in 1995.
- Youngest animator hired on The Simpsons at age 19, with credits on six 1992 episodes including Kamp Krusty and Lisa’s Pony.
- Author of The Best Story Wins: How to Leverage Hollywood Storytelling in Business and Beyond, Morgan James Publishing, 2018.
- TEDx speaker (TEDxUCSB), and corporate keynote speaker for Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Capital One, Procter and Gamble, Sony, Target, Vrbo, Adidas and Lego.
- Trained at the California Institute of the Arts character animation program; BFA from the Academy of Art University.
Biography
Pixar built one of the most reliable creative engines in modern business by treating story as a discipline, not a talent. Inside that engine sat a small group of story artists whose job was to find, in every film, the emotional truth a global audience would respond to. Matthew Luhn was one of them, across more than 20 years and films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Up and Ratatouille.
That work began early. He was the youngest animator hired on The Simpsons at 19, then joined Pixar in 1995 as one of the first 12 animators on Toy Story. He moved into the story room for Toy Story 2 and stayed there, eventually as story supervisor, through some of the most commercially successful animated films ever made.
The carry-over to business is direct. The same questions a story artist asks about a film, what does the audience need to feel, what is the change, what is the one thing they should remember, are the questions a leader should be asking about a strategy launch, a sales pitch or a brand campaign. His book, The Best Story Wins (Morgan James, 2018), turns those questions into a working methodology.
Buyers tend to find him through a specific tension. Their messages are accurate but not memorable. Their brand is recognised but not loved. Their internal communications inform but do not move people. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Capital One, Procter and Gamble, Sony and Target have used his work to address those gaps.
Key speaking topics
- Business storytelling
- Brand narrative and customer engagement
- Creative culture and the Pixar Braintrust process
- Innovation and creative differentiation
- Leadership communication
- Sales and pitch storytelling
Ideal for
- CMOs, brand directors and content leaders rebuilding how the company shows up to customers.
- Innovation leads and product organisations that need to make new ideas land internally and externally.
- Sales leadership and revenue teams sharpening pitch craft and customer-facing narrative.
- Internal communications and HR leaders running large town halls, change programmes or culture launches.
Audience outcomes
- A working structure for building a story around any business message, drawn from the Pixar story process.
- Sharper sense of what makes a brand or product narrative memorable rather than merely accurate.
- Tools for giving and receiving honest creative feedback, modelled on the Pixar Braintrust.
- A clearer separation between information delivery and persuasion, applied to keynotes, pitches and internal comms.
- Specific, repeatable techniques the team can apply to the next campaign, all-hands or customer presentation.
Talks
A keynote on how to build business stories that customers, employees and investors actually remember and repeat, drawn from two decades inside Pixar’s story room.
Key takeaways:
- The story structure that runs through Pixar films and how it transfers to a brand, sales or strategy message.
- Why most corporate communication fails on memory, not on accuracy, and how to fix it.
- A repeatable approach to crafting one unforgettable point per message.
A talk on how creative organisations turn raw ideas into commercial products, and what business teams can borrow from how Pixar runs creative development.
Key takeaways:
- How the Pixar Braintrust gives and receives feedback without crushing ideas.
- The difference between novelty and innovation that lands with an audience.
- Practical habits that protect creative work inside a results-driven business.
A keynote on how Hollywood uses audience data to shape stories, and what business leaders should and should not take from that practice.
Key takeaways:
- Where data sharpens a story and where it dulls it.
- How to use customer insight without flattening the brand.
- The line between data-informed and data-led creative decisions.
Videos
Testimonials
Books
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Asia Pacific | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| South America | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| United Kingdom | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US East Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |