Matt Havens

Matt Havens is the son of a headlining comedian, a former Fortune 25 leader, and a firm believer that most workplace problems are simpler to solve than we make them. He speaks on generational leadership, multi-generational teams, and workplace culture with a combination of research-backed insight and genuinely funny delivery that has earned him a reputation as one of the freshest voices in the industry. He spent 14 years leading teams in finance, sales, and customer service at a multi-billion dollar company — including pitching the C-suite at 25 on a plan to capitalize on the millennial opportunity — before taking his message on the road.

Stop Acting Your Age
Havens’s signature keynote, Stop Acting Your Age!, challenges the conventional four-generation model and replaces it with a more practical framework for resolving generational tension. His argument — that the generational divide comes down to life stage and life experience, not birth year — has resonated with audiences from financial services to healthcare to manufacturing. His follow-up keynote, You’re Not an Acronym, takes an equally contrarian look at the limits of personality assessments in leadership development.

Humor That Serves the Message
Matt grew up in the back rooms of comedy clubs watching his father work. That experience shapes every presentation he gives — the humor is never decoration, it is the mechanism.

Matt Havens delivers keynotes on generational leadership, workplace culture, and building teams that actually work together.

Stop Acting Your Age! (generational issues)

If you’ve listened to any other discussion about generational issues at work, then you’ve undoubtedly been told there are four distinct generations operating side-by-side in today’s working world. You’ve then been told the differences between those four generations, and then you’ve been told (although probably not in these exact words) that you need to just deal with all these different people, because they’re not going away and they’re not going to change how they operate. If that advice suits you, fantastic.

However, if you’ve ever been frustrated by how impossible it seems to employ four different strategies to manage four distinct generations, and if you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one who’s being asked to make any changes, then Stop Acting Your Age! is exactly what you need. Because it turns out that there really aren’t four generations. In this hysterical keynote, you’ll learn a simpler way of looking at your own generational picture, and you’ll also learn how to understand, recognize, and resolve every generational issue facing today’s workforce. That’s no exaggeration; by the end of Stop Acting Your Age!, you and your colleagues will walk away with all of the knowledge you’ll need to address 100% of the generational issues you’ll face for the rest of your career. Other generational presentations focus on what people want, but Stop Acting Your Age! will tell you why everyone wants the different things they do. It’s an important distinction, and it will make implementing new solutions easier than you ever thought possible.

So get ready to laugh more and learn more than you ever thought possible. Because improving your generational issues doesn’t have to be boring.

You’re Not an Acronym: A Practical Approach to Leadership

If you’ve been a leader for a while or are being groomed to become one, then you’ve probably taken your fair share of personality tests. Perhaps you know your Woo strength, or maybe you’ve recently discovered that you’re a purple triangle when you’re stressed. If this kind of information is all you need in order to be the kind of leader your people are excited to follow, then you probably don’t need to keep reading this.

But if you’ve ever suspected that leadership may be about more than just you, then You’re Not an Acronym is the kind of leadership presentation you’ll truly appreciate. Matt Havens has spent over a decade in various leadership positions at a Fortune 25 company. He’s taken dozens of personality assessments, and he’s recognized a fundamental flaw in the way that all of them attempt to help people become better leaders. By addressing and then correcting this oversight, You’re Not An Acronym will help you expand your understanding of leadership exponentially – and you’ll do it while laughing all the while. Because not only is this one of the most insightful leadership keynotes you’ll ever sit through, it’s also one of the funniest. After all, boring isn’t a business requirement. So get ready to enjoy the process of becoming a more effective leader more than you ever thought possible!