Julian Treasure
Most senior leaders cannot answer a basic question: how does our organisation actually sound, to customers, to staff, in the rooms where decisions get made? Listening is treated as etiquette and speech as performance, when both are operating variables that move engagement, retention and trust. Without a working theory of how sound and attention shape behaviour, communication investment defaults to volume.
Julian Treasure helps organisations treat listening, voice and sonic environment as operating variables, drawing on twenty years running The Sound Agency and five TED talks viewed more than 160 million times.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Julian Treasure
- He has run an operating consultancy, The Sound Agency, advising global brands on retail, office and public-space sound for two decades. The work has commercial outcomes attached, not theory.
- His TED catalogue is one of the most viewed of any speaker on any subject, which gives senior audiences a shared starting point before he steps on stage.
- He treats listening as a leadership capability with a teachable structure, and his book How to Be Heard sets out the model in detail.
- He covers the rarely combined territory of personal communication craft and the sonic design of physical workplaces, so he is credible with HR, brand and facilities audiences in the same room.
- Awards from Toastmasters International and the International Listening Association place him inside the formal communication and listening professions, not just the speaker circuit.
Biography highlights
- Founder and chairman of The Sound Agency, audio branding consultancy
- Five TED talks; combined views above 160 million; “How to Speak So That People Want to Listen” is TED’s sixth most-viewed talk
- Author of Sound Business (2014), How to Be Heard (2017) and Sound Affects (2025)
- Toastmasters International Golden Gavel Award; International Listening Association Special Recognition Award
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors
- Founded and sold UK customer magazine publisher TPD Group; former chairman of the UK Association of Publishing Agencies; PPA Chairman’s Award (2002)
Biography
Sound is the most underused operating variable in most organisations. Retailers play music chosen by the manager on shift. Offices design for visual brand and acoustic accident. Leaders speak without ever auditing how they are heard. The financial cost is real and the cultural cost is larger.
The Sound Agency was built around that gap. Founded by a former publisher and musician with a Cambridge economics degree, the consultancy has spent two decades advising global brands on retail soundscapes, office acoustics and audio identity, with measurable effects on sales, wellbeing and behaviour. The argument is that sound is a commercial system, designed or accidental, and most organisations choose accidental.
The communication work is the second half of the same proposition. Three books, Sound Business, How to Be Heard and Sound Affects, set out a structured model for speaking and listening as leadership skills rather than soft attributes. The TED catalogue, five talks above 160 million combined views, has made the speaking talk one of the most watched pieces of business communication content ever recorded. The Toastmasters Golden Gavel and the International Listening Association Special Recognition Award place him inside the formal disciplines, not adjacent to them.
For senior teams, he offers something specific: a working theory of how attention, voice and environment shape commercial and cultural outcomes, and the operating experience to back it up. The Royal Society of Arts fellowship and the Worshipful Company of Marketors livery are part of a wider institutional footprint that signals durability rather than novelty.
Key speaking topics
- Conscious listening as a leadership skill
- Powerful speaking and executive voice
- Audio branding and sonic identity
- Sound design in workplaces and retail environments
- Communication and engagement in distracted organisations
- Wellbeing effects of sound and noise
- Trust and credibility in senior communication
Ideal for
- CMOs and brand leadership rethinking customer experience beyond the visual
- HR, internal communications and culture leads working on listening and engagement
- Retail, hospitality and property leadership designing customer-facing environments
- Senior leaders preparing for high-stakes speaking, board, investor or media
Audience outcomes
- A working model for listening as a measurable leadership capability
- Specific techniques for executive voice, structure and presence in high-stakes settings
- A new lens on the commercial and cultural cost of accidental sound in workplaces and retail
- A shared vocabulary for communication quality across HR, brand and facilities functions
- Concrete next steps that connect personal communication craft to organisational outcomes
Talks
A working model for senior voice, drawing on the most-watched TED talk on the subject.
Key takeaways:
- The vocal and structural habits that erode credibility in senior leaders
- A teachable framework for content design and delivery in high-stakes settings
- How communication quality affects trust and decision-making at the top of organisations
A direct argument that listening is the missing leadership capability in most organisations.
Key takeaways:
- Why individual and organisational listening fail in predictable ways
- A structured model for listening as a teachable leadership skill
- The link between listening quality, engagement and retention
The commercial case for treating sound as an operating system, drawn from two decades of consultancy work.
Key takeaways:
- How sound shapes customer behaviour in retail, hospitality and public space
- The hidden productivity and wellbeing cost of office acoustics
- Practical principles for auditing and designing organisational sound