Good teams set goals. World-class teams set standards.
What do backflips, barbells and bikinis have in common?
Christie is an expert at all of them. Many of us dream of being the best at one thing. Christie has been number 1 in Australia and top 10 in the world in not one, but three different sports: Trampolining, CrossFit and Beach Volleyball.
A typical day in the ‘office’ might include turning triple somersaults ten metres in the air, lifting 100 kilos above her head, or playing 6 beach volleyball matches in a single day.
She shares the mental frameworks of what it takes to become world-class: More than once.
Whether your audience is 30 leaders for a team offsite, or 3000 people in an arena, they'll be on the edge of their seat for the storytelling, frantically taking notes on the frameworks (even Richard Branson was writing notes!), and stepping out of the room already having made the first change.
Aside from being an athlete, Christie is also one of the premier leaders in the startup and innovation sector.
Today, she's the founder and Managing Partner of Ampere - a new Australian accelerator program for the top 1% of the nation's founders.
Previously she has been:
• The Managing Director for Techstars - one of the top 2 global accelerators.
• Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at FC32 - acquiring professional soccer teams globally
• An investor at Blackbird Ventures - the number 1 venture capital fund in the country. Whilst there she led the investment into the fastest growing company in Australian history
Ask her why she loves investing, and she’ll tell you it’s because athletes and founders share the same mindset - grit, energy, obsession and wild ambition. The odds of becoming a professional athlete are less than 0.02%. The odds of building a unicorn company are 0.00006%. It takes a rare mindset to dedicate decades of your life to achieving a goal with such low odds of success.
That mindset is learnable. And we want our leaders to embrace it.
Unlike most speakers who speak only about sport, or only about business, with Christie you get a keynote that effortlessly bridges both worlds. You'll leap from being upside down 10 meters in the air on the trampoline... to the tactics of giving tough feedback to your team. Or holding the ball, ready to serve, on match point of the most important game of your life... to setting standards that your team hold even when you're not in the room.
She doesn't just just talk the talk, she runs, jumps, handstand walks, and backflips it too.
Talking Points
Raising Standards
Every team has goals. The best have standards.Raising Standards
Athletes spend 99% of our time training one thing: standards. We rarely talk about them, but standards are the secret to consistent, relentless, world-class performance.
Key outcomes:
1. Standards are 10x stronger than goals for performance.
2. 4 ways world-class leaders raise standards.
3. How to use standards to scale culture - even when you’re not in the room.
Learning to love the F word
Your team goes from panicking when they hear the word ‘feedback’, to seeking it out. Learning to love the F word
Imagine going to a sports training session, doing reps for an hour, and your coach says… nothing. It wouldn’t happen because athletes crave feedback. Learn how to have an athlete’s obsession with feedback, but at work.
Key outcomes:
1. Flip your team’s mindset to see feedback as a sign of care, not criticism
2. Master the three types of feedback: Appreciation, Coaching, Evaluation
3. The magic 9-3-1 ratio for leaders
Courage over Confidence
Bravery is a skill, and you can have more of it. Courage over Confidence
“What would you do if you had more confidence?” Ask people this and they can reel off answers. But confidence only comes after courage. And courage requires fear.
Key outcomes:
1. 3 questions you can always use to make courageous choices
2. 5 science backed techniques to develop the skill of courage
3. The comfort - confidence - courage circle that completely changes how teams show up
Leading Innovation
What’s next in tech, and how do you lead your team through it? From someone who sees 500+ startups a year.Leading Innovation
The best way to prepare for the future is to meet the people building it. As the Founder and General Partner of Ampere Accelerator, CJ sees over 500 of the best Australian startups every year, invests in the top 1%, and works alongside 120 top founders and operators to coach those startups.
Key outcomes:
1. AI, agentic agents, autonomous machines… what is actually coming next?
2. The 4 potential plays: acquire, build, partner, or invest
3. 3 ways to lead a culture that moves at the speed of tech
Women's Sport
Stadiums or stories? Play the investment game that Richard Branson loved. Women's Sport
Imagine you’re the new owner of a professional women’s team. You have $50M to invest across 4 different scenarios. Each time you will chose - do you put your money into stories (media and community) or stadiums (real estate).
Key outcomes:
1. When women’s teams don’t always own stadiums, can they make a profit?
2. Fans follow athletes, not teams. And stories, not scorelines. What is the new media of the women’s game?
3. The ROI for sponsors of women’s sport is up to 4X more than men’s sport. Why?
Video
Christie Jenkins | Speaker reel
Interactive, inspirational and left a mark on everyone in attendance. ... keep reading Startmate
Energetic, insightful and inspiring.
Nailed it!
Real insight… entertaining and engaging. She is a fantastic speaker.
Thanks so much Christie! The team are still talking about your session.
Richard Branson was in the front row taking notes, and he never takes notes.
If you haven't seen Christie on stage, make it a priority! Christie brings a rare combination of compelling storytelling, practical insight and energy that genuinely shifts mindsets. You will see a change in how your teams show up long after she's left the stage!
By far the MOST professional, MOST polished, MOST engaging presentation of the day. You know you nail the brief when the audience is taking notes and snapping your slides.
Christie had me captivated from the minute she started speaking, her storytelling ability is potentially the best I’ve ever seen. I was in tears by the end of it, and spent the afternoon telling my 19 year old daughter everything she spoke about.
Hot take: It's just not enough to know your subject matter to do a talk about it. I've had the privilege of seeing Christie Jenkins deliver a few keynotes now and I cannot overstate how REFRESHING it is to experience a speaker who understands the magic of stagecraft. Yes, she knows her sh*t, but it's always delivered with confidence, assuredness, and a glint of entertainment factor. The takeaway: book her.
Latest News
Neale Daniher: A Legacy That Will Outlast The Beast
Three Stories, One Expert: What Dr Zac Seidler's Week in the Media Tells Us About Men Right Now
How to Measure Event ROI: Why 72% of the Industry Says Outcome Measurement Is Now Essential
