
Bill Benjamin
Bill Benjamin is a top emotional intelligence keynote speaker and a thought leader on the subjects of leadership and peak performance. Bill spends time working with senior leaders and their teams at Fortune 500 companies helping them overcome the barriers that often hold them back from reaching their full potential.
Bill Benjamin's videos
What Bill Benjamin's clients say
"You were the perfect late afternoon speaker, you really kept everyone’s attention with your great stories and analogies. Your passion for what you do is refreshing. Thank you for making the conference a truly inspiring event."
"Excellent training! You did a terrific job of applying your topic contextually to mission safety at NASA. I wanted to hear more. Great program!"
"Bill is so incredibly insightful! His ability to command the stage and deliver actionable tips to really help people become better leaders who are emotionally intelligent is second to none in my experience. I attribute much of my personal success to what Bill taught me early in my career and leadership journey. From a meeting planner's perspective, Bill is a dream presenter - easy to work with, humble, and wants to be part of the team to deliver excellence. He took the responsibility to 'exceed expectations' as seriously as I did as the meeting host. Bill lives what he researches and teaches making personal/professional relationships so very enriching."
"Awesome presentation! Bill exceeded our expectations - his presentation offers a unique perspective on personal leadership. I like the way Bill brings science to our understanding of human behavior in an accessible and inspiring way. This session helped our people think differently about their personal relationships, their motivation and their performance. Bill's enthusiastic presentation really made a difference for our team."
"Bill, I want to thank you for a very powerful session. I had so many people saying this was so helpful!!! The science you taught on questions vs statements was incredible. I never knew the brain science component to this and realized I could be better asking questions when giving feedback. Better said, I need to coach more through questions! The coaching exercise drove this home! The session was a 10 out of 10! You are incredibly talented, can hold the room with your presence and you are very skilled at getting people to engage and interact."
"One of the best presentations I have ever been to! The delivery of the material was top-notch and very engaging. I learned excellent skills for both the workplace and life outside of work that I will take and use. Thank you."
"Bill’s speech was absolutely phenomenal and was enjoyed by all delegates and sponsors. It was a perfect start to the conference and I am still receiving positive feedback till this day!"
"I loved that your session on Reputation was backed with research and was very interesting. I truly like how you make information easy to understand and provided useful tools I can put into action. You also had great presentation skills, voice, projection, tone, pace and kept people engaged!"
"This was an insightful and practical training session. I was able to connect this directly to my own behaviors. I liked the way you had us practice the strategies rather than just telling us about hem so we could internalize the behavior. That way, I’ll actually remember it!"
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Languages:
- English
Bill Benjamin's 2025 biography
Meet Bill Benjamin
Engaging and dynamic… you’d never know he is a math and computer guy
Bill has a rare perspective – he has advanced degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science and has 25 years of real-world business experience as a senior leader. Bill is very genuine about the fact that he struggled early in his career as a leader when he was under pressure. In his programs he shares how he has been able to apply the very same techniques he teaches to become a better leader and create a high-performing culture on the teams he leads–and how you can too.
In addition to using his background in sales to motivate and inspire audiences, Bill leverages his mathematics and technical background to take a practical and scientific approach to helping people understand how the brain responds under pressure, and how that can help increase leadership and performance.
Bill is a partner at the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP), a successful international research and culture change company, named one of the “Fastest Growing Companies” in the “Fast 100” ranking in PROFIT Magazine. IHHP’s Last 8% Culture System helps organizations create high-performance cultures that are both high-care and high-accountability.
The combination of Bill’s practical nature and scientific approach to leadership make him a hit with analytical audiences. His high energy level and enthusiasm has resulted in a successful track record with discerning audiences that include surgeons, U.S Marines and NASA engineers.
Bill Benjamin's 2025 talks & topics
The calm person in the boat: leveraging the power of emotional intelligence to win
With emergence from COVID-19, your people are facing increased uncertainty, change, and anxiety. Unfortunately, panic can push the best managers into a command and control approach that doesn’t always help. It doesn’t have to be this way.
In this powerful virtual or live experience, your people will learn how to:
- Tune into the challenges their people are facing.
- Lead with empathy and strength
- Use brain-based strategies to manage fear and emotions so they can be resilient, a source of calm in your organization and help people be their best in the most trying situations.
- Influence & engage others who are at a distance and themselves feeling overwhelmed emotionally.
How to perform under pressure
Your people are facing the most intense challenge of their careers, yet most continue to rely on their IQ and technical skills to manage through. It’s not enough.
To survive, your organization needs to be agile and see opportunities where others do not. Your team needs to learn how to work effectively with others who are, themselves, under pressure themselves.
In this powerful program, your team will learn:
- Specific tools learned from working with high performers in the NFL, NBA, Olympic teams, Navy seals, Goldman Sachs, Intel, among others to be more adaptable, resilient, collaborative and opportunistic.
- How to manage their brain so they think, perform and lead under pressure.
- The single most important daily habit that increases focus and decreases burnout
- This virtual program is based on a 12,000-person study we did for our New York Times bestselling book, Performing Under Pressure
Why avoiding difficult (last 8%) situations you face is sabotaging your best performance
Most people struggle to have the impact they want to have because they lack the tools to confront the more difficult conversations they face. Avoiding difficult conversations, decisions, and tasks, what we call Last 8% Situations, not only handicaps an organization’s ability to adapt and win but disengages their most important resource, their people.
Now is not the time to play safe. As you face a new post-pandemic normal, tough decisions and conversations will have to be made about how you work (and where) in order to realize your organization’s success.
In this powerful virtual program, your people will learn specific tools to:
- Engage in the difficult conversations and decisions that lead to a high performing culture that drives innovation, engagement, and success.
- Create an environment of high psychological safety so people are not afraid to offer new and different ideas, the key to innovation.
- Work better, together, in a virtual environment where people struggle to stay focused through long days on Zoom.
Why a lack of empathy is at the heart of not working better, together
Today’s work environment requires more, not less, empathy. Not only because people are struggling today but because research is clear that employees are more likely to overachieve if they feel their managers are empathetic.In this powerful virtual program, your people will learn:
- What the single greatest cause of a lack of empathy at work is.
- Why building both Heart and Edge: the ability to care and tune-in but also the ability to hold people accountable is so important to get discretionary effort and build a great culture.
- How to inspire their people to do great work.
- Create an environment of high psychological safety so people are not afraid to offer new and different ideas, the key to innovation.
- Work better, together, in a virtual or hybrid environment so people can deliver results.
Why empathy is so critical to your success in 2021
There are three trends roiling the workplace today. One, your people are tired: on average they have been working three hours more per day during Covid and are on the verge of burnout. Two: your people have more money in their pocket because of the past year of little to no spending. And, three, your people are struggling with the idea of returning to the office (and commuting and…).
All of this is creating a challenge for your managers to engage and get the best out of your people because your people are not sure they are ready to buy into the plan for 2021.
To navigate through this will require more empathy than ever before: not only because people are struggling today and are facing more change, but because research is clear that employees are more likely to overachieve if they feel their managers are empathetic.
In this powerful program, your people will learn:
- What the single greatest cause of a lack of empathy at work is.
- Why Heart and Edge matters so much to culture. Heart is the ability to care and tune-in and, Edge is the ability to be direct and hold people accountable. Finding this balance is at the center of getting buy-in and discretionary effort from people.
- How to inspire their people to do great work.
- Create an environment of high psychological safety so people are not afraid to offer new and different ideas, the key to innovation.
- How to work better, together, in a virtual, hybrid or in-person environment so people can feel part of a team and deliver results.