Julie Holmes
AI is raising the floor for every company at once. The same models, the same speed, the same outputs are now available to every competitor in a category. The danger is no longer falling behind on adoption. It is spending heavily to arrive at the same place as everyone else, faster but indistinguishable.
Julie Holmes is a tech founder and AI keynote speaker who helps leadership teams build competitive advantage on top of AI, rather than using it only to run the existing business faster.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Julie Holmes
- She gives leaders a way past the trap most AI programmes fall into. Second Story Strategy™, her framework, treats AI as a starting line for distinct new value, not a finish line for cost savings.
- She has built and sold technology, not just studied it. Two innovation companies and products in over 60 countries give her keynotes the texture of an operator, and she still builds AI applications for herself and clients today.
- Her material works at two stages: helping teams who are still becoming AI-capable, and pushing teams who have already proven AI makes them faster toward the harder question of what they will do with it that no one else can.
- PSA-UKI Hall of Fame status puts her among 33 speakers recognised for sustained craft on stage, which matters when the brief is a high-stakes leadership audience with mixed AI fluency in the room.
- She lectures on innovation and AI at Yale, Birkbeck, and the American University of Beirut, keeping the material tested against faculty and students as well as paying clients.
Biography highlights
- Hall of Fame Speaker, PSA-UKI, one of 33 to hold the honour
- Originator of Second Story Strategy™ and the Second Story Blueprint for building competitive advantage on top of AI
- Author of Little Big Bangs for Leaders and of the 101+ AI Tips, Tools and Prompts series for leaders and sales professionals
- Founder of two innovation companies with products distributed in over 60 countries
- Clients include Oracle, Expedia, American Express, JetBlue, Nestle, EY, VMware, US Bank, and LinkedIn
- Guest lecturer at Yale, Birkbeck (University of London), and the American University of Beirut
Biography
AI is raising the floor for everyone. The same models, agents, and automation reach every competitor in a category at roughly the same time. That makes it easy to be good, and good is no longer a position. It is the new baseline. Julie Holmes works on the question that follows: once everyone is faster, what will your organisation be that no one else can be?
Her answer is Second Story Strategy™, a framework drawn from studying which companies actually pull ahead with AI and which simply run harder in place. The pattern she found was not about budget or engineering depth. The standouts treated AI as a foundation and built something distinct on top of it, working through four levels she maps as Build, Reimagine, Extend, and Lead, with the organisation’s own distinctiveness as the load-bearing element running through all of them.
Her credibility comes from building, not commenting. Holmes founded two innovation companies and shipped products into more than 60 countries, and she still builds AI applications for herself and clients. That operator history shapes how she talks to senior audiences. The diagnosis is practical, the language is plain, and her work extends into resources leaders can use directly, including the regularly updated 101+ AI Tips, Tools and Prompts series.
Holmes is a Hall of Fame Speaker with PSA-UKI, one of 33 to hold the honour, and a guest lecturer at Yale, Birkbeck, and the American University of Beirut. Brands including Oracle, Expedia, JetBlue, Nestle, EY, and LinkedIn have brought her in for the same reason: to move AI from a tool that makes them cheaper to a foundation that makes them distinct.
Key speaking topics
- Second Story Strategy™ and competitive advantage through AI
- AI strategy and enterprise adoption
- AI-empowered teams and workflows
- Innovation as a leadership discipline
- Sales and customer experience under AI
- Future of work and AI capability building
Ideal for
- C-suite leaders setting enterprise AI direction
- Heads of department helping their teams level up with AI
- Sales and customer-experience leaders integrating AI into commercial workflows
- Company-wide events where AI fluency varies widely across the room
Audience outcomes
- The five behaviours that set AI-savvy teams apart, framed as a Second Story Strategy™ they can act on
- A clear way to decide where to build genuine distinction and where keeping pace is enough
- Concrete examples of how AI is reshaping leadership, sales, and customer experience, with specific tools named
- Language for leading non-technical teams into AI with confidence rather than anxiety
- A sharper sense of which AI use cases build advantage and which only add speed
Talks
A leadership session on what an organisation builds on top of AI once everyone has the same tools and the same speed.
Key takeaways:
- Why a rising floor is not a competitive position, and what to build above it
- The four levels of the Second Story Blueprint applied to a real organisation
- How to decide where distinction is worth the investment and where parity is enough
A practical introduction to using AI to sell smarter, serve better, and save time, aimed at audiences who need a confident starting point.
Key takeaways:
- A working mental model for where AI helps day-to-day
- Named tools and prompts that translate to immediate use
- A first-pass view of personal AI capability and what to build next
Applies the UPGRADE methodology at the team level, focused on operationalising AI rather than running another pilot.
Key takeaways:
- The UPGRADE steps applied to a real team workflow
- A clearer split between individual, team, and enterprise AI capability
- A method for sequencing AI rollout against business priorities
Customer experience and sales innovation, focused on small operational changes with disproportionate commercial impact.
Key takeaways:
- Where service and sales touchpoints leak value
- Lightweight innovation moves teams can make without a transformation programme
- Practical examples drawn from her work with consumer and B2B brands
Draws from Little Big Bangs for Leaders to reframe innovation as a daily leadership habit, not a quarterly initiative.
Key takeaways:
- The “little big bangs” model for incremental innovation
- A leadership routine for surfacing and shipping ideas
- How to build an inventive culture without a dedicated innovation team