Speaking Engagements
SIMA Super Summit
The New Retail Playbook: How to Win When the Rules Have Changed
The SIMA Super Summit is a dynamic gathering of surf industry leaders and innovators across business, culture and sport. In a time of disruption, digital acceleration, and shifting global landscapes, this summit is designed to spark collaboration, elevate sustainability and drive forward-thinking strategies for long-term growth.
Join Kevin Kelley for his keynote speech on unveiling the new playbook for retailers: one built on human connection, cultural meaning, and social experiences that no screen can replace.
Learn more and join here!
NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show
Revitalizing Customer Experience with Community-Centric Strategies
Retail success stories are written by companies that are simultaneously crushing it in the now and primed for what's next. NRF 2026 calls it The Next Now.
Join Kevin Kelley and Shannon DeVito, senior director of book strategy and customer experience with Barnes & Noble, for a fireside chat exploring the impact of retail on community and creating store environments that tap into discover, delight, escape, and social bliss.
Learn more and join us here!
Past Speaking Engagements
Gravisite Site Selection Research Conference
The Bonfire Effect: How to Create Stores That Can Survive and Thrive in a Digitally-Dominant Era
We live in a time of digital replacements, where everything we used to do physically in place—shopping for groceries, getting dinner at a restaurant, and going to the movies— can now be achieved virtually online.
So how can place-based entities survive, much less thrive, in an era of digital dominance? By creating Irreplaceable places that have the power to convene people around a quality that Kevin Ervin Kelley calls, The Bonfire Effect.
Through engaging storytelling, human behavior insights, and real-world case studies, Kevin Ervin Kelley—an attention architect and cofounder of Shook Kelley, a strategic design firm that pioneered the field of “convening”—unfolds why physical places are essential to business, community, and civil society.
Join the conversation by registering here.
2025 Technology & Entrepreneurship Summit
Entrepreneurship Keynote
The Technology & Entrepreneurship Summit brings together entrepreneurs, industry professionals, students, and community members to explore the evolving landscape of technology and business. The summit is hosted by the Northern Innovation and Startup Center, in collaboration with the Aberdeen Development Corporation.
Join Kevin Kelley (Wednesday, September 24 at 9:00AM) for his keynote speech on entrepreneurship and his insights on how to design spaces that encourage innovation, relevance, and long-term success.
Learn more and join here!
PCBC 2025
Main Stage Keynote
A convention hallmark, PCBC's keynote sessions feature legendary thinkers and doers in the fields of business, strategy, performance, entertainment, leadership, and motivation.
Join Kevin Kelley (Wednesday, June 11 at 3:00PM) for his keynote speech on behavioral design with insights on how physical environments affect the minds of consumers. He will join a panel discussion with economy expert Christopher Thornberg (Founder, Beacon Economics) and consumer sentiment expert J. Walker Smith (Chief Knowledge Officer, Kantar Consulting) for an illuminating interrelated discussion.
Learn more and join here!