Katherine Templar-Lewis

Why organisations work with Katherine Templar-Lewis

• She brings the science of uncertainty into the room with an evidence base, not a metaphor. The Uncertainty Experts, the programme she leads as chief scientist, was built with University College London and is one of the few interventions on the topic with published validation.
• Her material is designed to land on commercial teams, not academic audiences. She has translated the same research into work for Apple, LEGO, Nike, Volvo, Nestle and TikTok.
• Co-author of The Uncertainty Toolkit with Sam Conniff (Pan Macmillan), giving leaders a named, citable framework rather than a generic talk on resilience.
• A serious media operator: BBC, Sky News, NBC, CNN, Radio 4 and The Today Show, with coverage in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and New Scientist. Boards get a communicator who can hold a stage and a camera.
• Co-founder of Kinda Studios, a neuroscience studio that runs applied research with UCL and Goldsmiths. The work she presents from the stage is the work she is doing with clients during the week.

Biography highlights

• Cognitive scientist; co-founder and director of Kinda Studios, a creative neuroscience studio.
• Lead scientist and co-creator of The Uncertainty Experts, an interactive documentary developed with University College London and Sam Conniff.
• Co-author of The Uncertainty Toolkit, published by Pan Macmillan.
• Co-host and executive producer of Beyond 5 Senses, an Audible Originals neuroscience series.
• Research collaborations with UCL and Goldsmiths; programme research validated in association with The Royal Society and CIPD.
• Recurring science contributor on BBC, Sky News, NBC, CNN, Radio 4, The Today Show, The One Show and Start the Week.
• Speaker and consulting work with Apple, LEGO, Nike, Volvo, Nestle, Netflix and TikTok.

Biography

Most leadership advice on uncertainty stops at metaphor. Katherine Templar-Lewis works on the underlying mechanism, the cognitive and neurological systems that decide whether a senior team holds its nerve, narrows its focus or freezes. As co-founder of Kinda Studios and lead scientist on The Uncertainty Experts, she has built one of the few evidence-based programmes on the subject, developed with University College London and validated in association with The Royal Society and CIPD.

The work has commercial reach because the science is translated, not diluted. The Uncertainty Toolkit, her book with Sam Conniff for Pan Macmillan, sets out the operating moves leaders can make when conditions are unstable: how to read their own physiology, how to choose between options without false confidence, how to keep teams committed when the picture keeps changing. Apple, LEGO, Nike, Volvo, Nestle and TikTok have used the same material inside their own organisations.

She is also a confident communicator outside the academic register. As co-host and executive producer of Beyond 5 Senses on Audible, and as a recurring contributor across BBC, Sky News, NBC, CNN and Radio 4, she has spent years turning research into language that an audience can use the next morning. New Scientist has called her approach radically optimistic, which is unusual in a field that tends toward warnings.

What she gives an executive audience is a more accurate map of what their own brains are doing during a hard quarter, and a small set of tools that hold up when the data does not.

Key speaking topics

• Decision-making under uncertainty
• Applied neuroscience for leaders
• Team performance and connection
• Cognitive resilience and recovery
• Neuroaesthetics, creativity and wellbeing
• Behaviour change and organisational learning

Ideal for

• Executive teams and boards working through prolonged strategic uncertainty
• CHROs and people leaders rebuilding team resilience after sustained change
• Innovation, brand and customer experience leaders interested in neuroaesthetics
• Leadership development programmes for senior cohorts

Audience outcomes

• A working understanding of how the brain handles uncertainty, and what that means for senior decisions
• Named techniques from The Uncertainty Toolkit that leaders can apply to their own routines
• Sharper recognition of the team behaviours that signal cognitive overload before performance drops
• A more confident posture toward ambiguity, grounded in research rather than mindset language