Scott Lesnick
Five generations now sit on the same payroll, and the assumptions managers make about each one are mostly wrong. Engagement tools designed for one cohort actively repel another. Retention, communication and productivity all sit downstream of that mismatch, and most organisations have no shared language for fixing it.
Scott Lesnick is a leadership and workplace keynote speaker who helps organisations connect across a five-generation workforce, navigate change and reduce burnout, drawing on 24 years inside a Berkshire Hathaway business and two books on resilience under pressure.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Scott Lesnick
- He has spent 24 years inside Shaw Industries, a Berkshire Hathaway Fortune 500 business, before moving into speaking, so the change, retention and communication material is delivered from operating experience, not a consultancy framework.
- His multigenerational workplace content draws on a five-year practitioner survey and converts it into seven concrete strategies for recruiting, retaining and integrating Millennials, Gen Z and the incoming Generation Alpha.
- The Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association, plus a term as Dean of the NSA Academy for Professional Speakers, is a credential of speaking craft, not of subject expertise, and it shows up in the quality of room-handling for plenary keynotes.
- The Kidjacked story (recovering his two children after international abduction) gives him a non-negotiable platform for keynotes on resilience and persistence under sustained pressure, used by clients including UPS Freight, US Bank, 7-Eleven and SHRM.
Biography highlights
- 24 years in sales and management leadership at Shaw Industries, a Berkshire Hathaway Fortune 500 company.
- Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), National Speakers Association.
- Former Dean of the Academy for Professional Speakers, National Speakers Association.
- TEDx speaker, TEDx Oshkosh: “Limited Resources or Unlimited Resourcefulness”.
- Author of Kidjacked: A Father’s Story and Lifejacked: Life Lessons on Leadership.
- Named client list includes UPS Freight, US Bank, 7-Eleven, SHRM, the Financial Planning Association and the American Association of Orthodontists.
Biography
For the first time in working memory, five generations are sharing the same office, the same Slack channel and the same performance review system. Traditionalists are exiting, Generation Alpha is starting to arrive, and managers in between are running engagement playbooks built for a workforce that no longer exists.
Scott Lesnick built his speaking practice on that problem. After 24 years leading sales and management teams at Shaw Industries, a Berkshire Hathaway Fortune 500 business, he moved into keynote work full time and built a multigenerational workplace programme around a five-year practitioner survey. The output is a set of seven concrete strategies for recruiting, retaining and integrating workers across Millennials, Gen Z and the incoming cohorts.
The resilience material runs alongside it. Lesnick’s memoir Kidjacked tells the story of locating and recovering his two young children after they were abducted to the Middle East, and his second book, Lifejacked, collects interviews with people who came through serious adversity and went on to lead. Both feed into the change, burnout and persistence content he is most often booked for.
He holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association, served as Dean of the NSA Academy for Professional Speakers, and delivered a TEDx talk on doing more with less at TEDx Oshkosh. Named clients include UPS Freight, US Bank, 7-Eleven, SHRM, the Financial Planning Association and the American Association of Orthodontists.
Key speaking topics
- Multigenerational workplace strategy
- Leading through organisational change
- Employee engagement and retention
- Resilience and burnout
- Communication across generational cohorts
- Hybrid workplace dynamics
Ideal for
- CHROs, talent and people leaders rebuilding engagement across a five-generation workforce.
- Sales and commercial leaders managing teams through restructure or market change.
- Healthcare, financial services and trade associations running practitioner conferences with mixed-cohort audiences.
- Internal leadership development programmes for newly promoted managers leading older and younger reports.
Audience outcomes
- Seven practitioner strategies for blending and retaining multiple generations on the same team.
- A clearer read on what Millennials, Gen Z and Generation Alpha actually respond to in recruitment and engagement design.
- Specific tools for reducing burnout and protecting decision quality during periods of sustained change.
- A working vocabulary for inclusion and communication that is portable across the organisation.
Talks
A change-leadership keynote on holding retention, wellbeing and communication together while an organisation is restructuring.
Key takeaways:
- Seven actions to strengthen communication and inclusion under change.
- How to identify and address the personal and professional pressures dragging on team performance.
- Tools for reducing stress and burnout so decision quality holds up.
A workplace strategy keynote on attracting, integrating and keeping workers across five generations now active in the labour market.
Key takeaways:
- Seven strategies for blending multiple generations, drawn from a five-year survey.
- Engagement and recruitment tools that work for Millennials, Gen Z and Generation Alpha.
- Communication patterns that move information cleanly across cohorts in hybrid settings.
A resilience keynote built on the Kidjacked story, used for audiences working through prolonged uncertainty or recovery.
Key takeaways:
- How relationship building strengthens leadership under pressure.
- Practical methods for managing burnout so judgement holds at the senior level.
- Agile approaches for long-duration challenges, not short-term setbacks.
The TEDx Oshkosh talk extended as a keynote on productivity when budgets, headcount and time are constrained.
Key takeaways:
- Where resourcefulness compounds and where it does not.
- How to keep momentum on long projects without adding headcount.
- Practical filters for deciding what to drop when capacity is fixed.
Videos
Testimonials
Books
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Asia Pacific | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| 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 | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |