Katy Leeson

Known for her straight-talking style and practical leadership insights, Katy’s standout achievement was scaling Social Chain from 30 to over 130 staff and helping to build the agency into a household name in partnership with Steven Bartlett. Alongside her business success, she is also a top-ranked podcast host, rated in the top five business podcasts on iTunes, and a passionate advocate for mental health, purpose-driven leadership, and inclusive workplaces.

Katy began her career in media at Feather Brooksbank, learning the ropes as an Account Manager before joining MediaCom North, where she progressed through several roles to become Head of New Business and Marketing by 2015. These formative years sharpened her skills in advertising strategy, client management, and business development. Her rapid rise through the industry is a testament to her ambition, talent and adaptability. Former MD of Steven Bartlett’s Social Chain growing the start-up agency into a £300M global marketing leader with taking it from 30 employees to 750+ employees across 24 offices worldwide.

Over the years, Katy has received numerous accolades for her leadership and impact. She was recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice in 2019 and 2020, named a Campaign Female Frontier Honouree in 2020, listed as an IPA Women of Tomorrow Finalist in 2016, and has built a LinkedIn community of 70,000. After leaving Social Chain, she became CEO of Relentless Group, Gary Neville’s media company. She headed the media team at Salford City FC, launched the club’s social channels, and grew its fanbase by applying the psychology of fandom. The aim was to turn local kids whose dads supported Manchester United into lifelong Salford fans. She also grew audiences for the shows, led the marketing strategy and execution for Stick to Football, and helped launch The Overlap, one of YouTube’s leading UK sports shows. More recently, she has taken on fractional CMO roles with fast-growing brands such as Nadine Merabi, Luxe Collective, and Glowwa, supporting their strategic marketing, digital performance, and content development.

Keynote Synopsis

What I Learned Scaling a Team from 30 to 130 and Revenue by 650% in Six Years

In this candid and energising talk, Katy Leeson shares the real lessons, challenges, and breakthroughs from her journey scaling a high-growth organisation. Drawing on six transformative years of leadership, from rapid team expansion to a 650% increase in revenue, Katy reveals the three leadership principles she would repeat without hesitation, and the one mistake she’ll never make again.

Audiences will learn why culture must be built before performance can truly soar, why hiring for team fit beats chasing CVs, and how to surround yourself with people who challenge, stretch, and ultimately elevate you. Katy also opens up about battling imposter syndrome and the costly impact of trying to fix everything for everyone else, offering a powerful and relatable reminder about boundaries, confidence, and sustainable leadership.

The session concludes with practical, grounded advice for modern leaders navigating multi-generational teams, client red flags, personal brand building, and the future of social media. Whether you’re a new manager or a seasoned executive leading through complexity, Katy’s insights will leave you with actionable tools, renewed self-belief, and a fresh perspective on what it really takes to build teams, and cultures, that thrive.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Biggest Motivator

In this honest, relatable, and highly practical talk, Katy Leeson shares her personal journey with imposter syndrome, from leading a rapidly scaling organisation as Managing Director, to navigating high-pressure roles, therapy, and eventually discovering how to turn self-doubt into fuel for growth.

Through stories of real leadership challenges, rapid business expansion, and pivotal moments of crisis and breakthrough, Katy reveals how imposter syndrome shows up, why it persists even at the highest levels of achievement, and how it can become one of the most powerful tools for personal and professional development.

Audiences will learn how to reframe fear, understand what their inner critic is really signalling, and uncover the deeper values driving their moments of self-doubt. Katy walks through her five-part framework, practical strategies she used to scale teams, grow revenue dramatically, and build confidence in high-stakes environments. Interactive exercises help attendees identify their strengths, challenge old narratives, and transform “I’m not enough” into momentum, clarity, and grounded self-belief.

Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, creative, or anyone striving for growth, this talk leaves you with actionable tools, renewed perspective, and the ability to recognise imposter syndrome not as a blocker, but as a catalyst for your next level.

Bridging the Generational Gap: Learning Together Across Ages

In a workplace where up to five generations now collaborate side by side, communication, expectations, and working styles have never been more diverse, or more full of opportunity. In this insightful and practical talk, Katy Leeson shares the lessons she learned leading and scaling a fast-paced multigenerational team, and shows how organisations can transform generational diversity into a powerful engine for shared learning and innovation.

Drawing from real-world experience, Katy breaks down the myths and misunderstandings that often sit between age groups and reveals why traditional leadership models no longer serve modern teams. Instead, she offers a fresh approach built on curiosity, collaboration, and communication that meets every generation where they are.

Audiences will learn how to upgrade communication habits, replace hierarchy with shared ownership, and build cultures where seasoned professionals and emerging talent learn from one another. With actionable tools, from reverse mentoring to shared learning circles, Katy demonstrates how cross-generational connection increases engagement, strengthens trust, and accelerates innovation.

This talk is ideal for leaders, managers, and teams who want to improve collaboration, deepen understanding, and unlock the unique strengths that each generation brings. Attendees will leave with a renewed perspective: when we bridge generational gaps, we don’t just connect across ages, we connect across potential.

Sustainable Performance: Why Burnout Is a Design Problem, Not a Personal One

For years, organisations have tried to solve burnout by asking individuals to be more resilient, more balanced, and better at switching off. It hasn’t worked.

In this talk, Katy Leeson challenges the idea that burnout is a personal failure and reframes it as what it really is: a work design problem.

Drawing on over 20 years’ experience leading teams across large agencies and high-growth media businesses, Katy explores why traditional models of work–life balance are no longer fit for purpose and how modern organisations can design ways of working that support both performance and wellbeing.

Katy introduces the concept of Sustainable Performance: a practical, commercially grounded approach that aligns people, energy, and ways of working so results can be achieved without burnout becoming the cost of success.

This session explores:

• Why high performance and burnout are often two sides of the same broken system
• How misaligned values, unmanaged energy, and outdated ways of working quietly erode performance
• What sustainable performance actually looks like in modern organisations
• The role leaders play in designing environments where people and results can thrive

Audiences leave with a clear shift in perspective, a shared language for sustainable performance, and practical insights they can apply immediately whether they are leading teams, shaping culture, or navigating demanding roles themselves.

From Work–Life Balance to Work–Life Blend: Designing How Work Actually Works

Work–life balance has become the ultimate workplace myth.

In reality, work doesn’t sit neatly on one side of life especially in high-performing, creative, and fast-paced environments. The result? People feel constantly “out of balance,” while organisations struggle with burnout, disengagement, and retention.

In this talk, Katy Leeson introduces Work–Life Blend a more honest, empowering way of thinking about how work and life coexist in the modern world.

Rather than striving for an impossible sense of balance, Katy shows how individuals and teams can design intentional ways of working that give them greater control, clarity, and sustainability without lowering ambition or performance standards.

This session explores:

• Why work–life balance often leaves people feeling like they’re failing
• How work–life blend puts control back in the hands of individuals and teams
• The hidden expectations and norms that drive burnout
• How leaders can design clarity, trust, and accountability without micromanagement

Grounded in real-world leadership experience, this talk moves beyond theory and into practical design helping organisations rethink availability, boundaries, recovery, and performance in ways that actually work.

Audiences leave with a powerful reframe, practical tools, and a renewed sense of agency over how work fits into their lives.

Sustainable Performance in the Modern Workplace: From Balance to Blend

In the modern workplace, performance is high and so is burnout.

In this talk, Katy Leeson explores why traditional ideas about work, balance, and productivity are no longer fit for purpose, and why burnout should be seen as a design issue rather than an individual failing.

Introducing the concepts of Sustainable Performance and Work–Life Blend, Katy shows how organisations can redesign how work works aligning people, energy, and ways of working to deliver results without sacrificing health, creativity, or ambition.

Blending commercial insight with real-world leadership experience, this session challenges outdated norms and offers a practical, human-centred approach to performance that works for both people and businesses.