Speaking & Event Enquiries

Talk to me about speaking at your next incredible event.

Francesca McGarey is a UK-based keynote speaker, sustainable marketing consultant, and fractional CMO. She speaks to leadership teams, founder communities, and conferences on sustainable marketing systems, consumer psychology, and ethical AI adoption in business. Before founding Marketing for Small Businesses UK in 2015, she worked at Google's Creative Lab.

I speak at events where strategy, experience, and real life intersect, from leadership teams and founder communities to conferences and intimate workshops. My talks are designed to help people make better decisions, not just feel inspired for an afternoon.

I work across two contexts that most speakers sit in only one of:

Corporate and scaling organisations navigating complexity - where the challenge is maintaining coherence, trust, and human judgement as systems grow.

Founder communities and small businesses building without a safety net - where the challenge is doing more with less, without losing what makes the business worth building.

Different rooms, but the same underlying question: how do you grow without losing care, clarity, or direction?

My signature talks:

Beyond Activity: Designing Sustainable Marketing Systems

Marketing often begins simply, a few channels, a clear message, a focused effort. As businesses grow, tools, campaigns, and automations accumulate until the system behind the marketing becomes harder to see and harder to trust.

This talk steps back from tactics to explore marketing as a system: shaped by customer journeys, strategic decisions, and the technology sitting underneath both.

Workshop: Participants map their own marketing system, identify where complexity has built up, and uncover practical ways to simplify and strengthen it.

Beyond Persuasion: Consumer Psychology for Mindful Marketing

Many marketing systems rely on pressure - more urgency, more messages, more noise. In the short term it works. Over time it erodes the trust it was trying to build.

This talk explores how consumer psychology helps organisations design marketing that feels thoughtful rather than intrusive — shifting the focus from grabbing attention to building relationships people want to return to.

Workshop: Teams map key customer moments, uncover where trust is built or lost, and redesign experiences to feel clearer and more respectful.

Beyond the Hype: A Thoughtful Approach to AI in Business

AI is arriving faster than most organisations can meaningfully absorb it. New tools promise efficiency, yet leaders often find themselves asking how these technologies should actually fit into the systems they rely on.

This talk explores where AI genuinely helps and where it quietly adds complexity, with a focus on introducing intelligent technology in ways that support human judgement and long-term thinking, rather than replacing them.

Workshop: Teams examine where AI is entering their organisation and develop clear principles for evaluating and introducing it responsibly.

Why me:

Before founding Marketing for Small Businesses in 2015, I spent over a decade in corporate roles - including at Google's Creative Lab - working inside large-scale digital systems and transformation programmes.

I've since spent eleven years translating that experience into clear, grounded, human-first strategy for organisations and founder-led businesses who don't have infinite time, teams, or tolerance for noise. I understand how decisions are made at scale. I also understand what it feels like to build without a safety net. That dual perspective is what audiences tell me they value most.

my approach on stage:

I don't deliver hype. I don't compress complexity into soundbites.

What I create instead is space; for better questions, more considered decisions, and conversations that continue long after the event ends.

My sessions combine strategic frameworks leaders can apply immediately, pattern recognition drawn from across industries and business sizes, and the kind of emotional intelligence that makes complex ideas feel navigable rather than overwhelming.

Whether I'm speaking to a senior leadership team, a scaling startup, or a community of independent founders, I aim to leave people thinking differently, feeling steadier, and ready to act with intention.

Delivery formats:

📍  Onsite keynotes and workshops

💻  Virtual sessions for leadership teams, conferences, and founder communities

A note on fit:

My speaking work is best suited to audiences who value thoughtful strategy over quick wins, nuance over noise, and long-term thinking over short-term tactics.

If that's the room you're curating, I'd welcome a conversation.

Enquiries:

If you're curating an event, programme, or offsite and would like to explore a collaboration, please complete the form below and I'll be in touch shortly.