Available for keynotes, executive education, and guest lectures. Topics span AI strategy, decision architecture, the economics of AI infrastructure, healthcare technology, and entrepreneurship at scale. Built from forty years of consulting and operating in healthcare technology businesses, two founder exits, and an active research program at the Daniels College of Business. Each talk is built around a specific argument, not delivered from a generic deck.
Eight topics, organized by audience. The first five are aimed at executives, boards, founders, and industry conferences. The last three address university leadership, faculty, and academic audiences from an outside business perspective. Each is grounded in current research and applied practice and tailored to the event.
Why high-stakes AI decisions require a different architecture than the platforms most enterprises are deploying. The 737 MAX, Equifax, and 2008 mortgage crisis as architectural failures, and what the alternative looks like.
Anchored in: The High Stakes Decision (April 2026)
The Petersen Accountable Reasoning Stack: a five-layer reasoning architecture for accountable AI in high-stakes operational decisions. How to produce visible reasoning, auditable state, operator steerability, and trust signals at every layer. Includes the High Stakes Reasoning Gate as an executive approval artifact.
Anchored in: High Stakes Reasoning (May 2026)
Forty years of building, scaling, and exiting healthcare technology businesses. The architecture decisions that made the difference between transformative outcomes and average ones. The executive's perspective on what executive teams get right and wrong about technology investments in high-stakes environments. Drawn from three businesses built and led, two of which exited to Kaufman Hall and IBM Watson Health.
An empirical briefing on what predicts early-stage startup success and post-IPO transformative outcomes. Drawn from a longitudinal venture database of more than four million firms. Specific findings on which market-facing functions accelerate venture progress, when they should be established, and how founder prior success moderates the effect.
Anchored in: AMA Summer Conference and WEIA Annual Conference Proceedings (2026)
How three compounding cost curves (local compute, model intelligence, inference) have rewritten who can do serious research, decision-making, and consulting work. Implications for higher education, scholarly infrastructure, entrepreneurship, and the future of professional services.
Anchored in: The Expansion of Discovery (April 2026)
Decades of building decision systems across the late Second Industrial Revolution, through the Third, and into the Fourth. What stays constant, what changes, and what the pattern recognition tells us about where to invest attention now.
An outside business perspective on the AI transition in higher education, drawn from forty years employing the kinds of graduates universities are training and from active research at the Daniels College of Business. What graduates need to know about AI, which roles are emerging across management, business, and technical tiers, and how universities should rethink curriculum, faculty development, and academic integrity in an AI-augmented world.
Anchored in: Preparing Colorado Graduates and New AI Roles in the Workforce (2026)
Four architectures of causation in business research, and why the methods we are trained to reach for first may be answering a different question than the one we asked. Methodological argument with empirical illustrations.
Anchored in: Beyond the Average (April 2026)
Drawn from forty years training adult learners in competency-based curriculum design, and from current doctoral teaching practice. How generative AI exposes and amplifies the student motivation divide, and what assignment design has to look like in a world where effort is no longer the rate-limiting factor. Practical framework for faculty redesigning courses for the AI era.
Anchored in: The Lazy Student and the Motivated Mind (2026)
Each topic adapts to multiple formats. The right format depends on the audience, the time available, and the depth the event needs.
Forty-five to sixty minute keynote address. Built around a specific argument with concrete examples and a clear takeaway. Suited to industry conferences, executive forums, and association events.
Half-day or full-day workshop format for executive teams or leadership groups. Combines argument with applied work: discussion, case analysis, decision-architecture mapping for the participants' own organizations.
Panel participation, moderated conversation, or fireside chat format. Suited to events where the value is the exchange rather than a single voice.
Sixty to ninety minute guest lecture for university courses, executive education programs, or doctoral seminars. Tailored to the syllabus and the level of the audience.
References and a detailed list of past engagements are available on request for serious booking inquiries.
Available for keynotes, executive workshops, guest lectures, and panel discussions at conferences, executive forums, association events, and university programs. Travel from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with virtual delivery available where appropriate.
Schedule a call or send a short note with the event name, date, audience, and format. Boards, executive search firms, and conference programmers who see fit beyond the speaking engagement are welcome to reach out the same way.
Press, podcast, and media inquiries are welcome. The fastest path is the contact form below with topic set to media. I respond to media inquiries within a few business days where there is editorial fit.
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