Strategy starts with understanding the external environment.
Eliane Miles is a consumer and social trends analyst who helps senior leaders make confident decisions in complex and rapidly changing environments.
She is the founder of The Curious Co, an insights and strategy consultancy that delivers practical strategic direction to clients across a wide range of industries.
With clients including Grant Thornton, CommBank, and Shopify, she has helped some of the world’s largest brands gain insights for growth, engage more deeply with customers and build brand credibility.
Known for her analytical capability matched with deep intuition, audiences love her clear, curated, and engaging presentations.
Eliane has delivered over 100 keynotes, strategy sessions, and executive workshops across multiple continents. A regular media commentator, she has featured on ABC The Drum, 9News, SBS, and 7News as well as on radio, print and in online media.
Eliane’s mission is to create clarity from complexity, share the story in the data, and lead organisations towards active, confident decision-making.
Talking Points
The Structural Shift: 5 Forces Reshaping Customers, Work, and Trust
Disruption is no longer episodic but structural. AI, demographic change, generational shifts, workforce capability gaps and declining trust are converging to reshape how customers behave, how organisations operate, and how decisions are made. In this keynote, Eliane provides a clear, evidence-informed environmental scan of the external forces redefining the operating landscape. She translates these shifts into practical implications for leaders, helping them move beyond reactive decision-making and towards more confident, strategic responses.The Structural Shift: 5 Forces Reshaping Customers, Work, and Trust
Key Takeaways:
- A clear understanding of the five structural forces reshaping customers, work and trust.
- Insight into how external shifts are impacting your organisation, workforce and customers.
- A shared leadership lens to support more aligned and confident decision-making.
- Practical implications to inform strategy, positioning and capability priorities.
- Greater clarity on what matters most now — and what to prioritise next
The AI-Era Customer: How Decision-making, Trust, and Loyalty are Changing
Customers are no longer navigating decisions alone. They are navigating them with algorithms, AI tools and peer-driven influence. Discovery is now intermediated, trust is built differently, and traditional paths to loyalty are breaking down. In this keynote, Eliane explores how AI, platforms and generational behaviour are reshaping how customers find, evaluate and choose organisations. She provides a clear lens on what this means for visibility, credibility and relevance in an increasingly AI-mediated marketplace.The AI-Era Customer: How Decision-making, Trust, and Loyalty are Changing
Key Takeaways:
- A clear understanding of how AI is reshaping customer discovery and decision-making
- Insight into how trust is formed in a low-trust, high-information environment
- Practical guidance on maintaining visibility and relevance in AI-driven ecosystems
- Clarity on how customer expectations are shifting across generations
- Strategic implications for marketing, communication and customer engagement
Leading through Acceleration: Culture, Generations and Capability in the AI Era
AI is not just transforming productivity, but is reshaping culture, capability and leadership itself. Organisations are increasingly divided between those who are AI-enabled and those who are not, creating new capability gaps and cultural tension. At the same time, generational shifts are changing how authority, trust and leadership are perceived. In this keynote, Eliane connects these forces to the future of leadership, equipping leaders to navigate acceleration with clarity, credibility and confidence.Leading through Acceleration: Culture, Generations and Capability in the AI Era
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding of how AI is reshaping capability, performance and culture
- Insight into emerging capability gaps and how to respond to them early
- Practical approaches to leading multi-generational teams through change
- Guidance on building trust and credibility in rapidly evolving environments
- A clearer leadership framework for decision-making under pressure
Making Sense of Change: An External Lens for Strategic Decision-Making
Leaders today are operating in an environment of constant noise, pressure and competing priorities. But the greatest risk is not internal execution: It is misreading what is happening externally. In this keynote, Eliane helps leaders step back from day-to-day operations and understand the broader forces shaping their customers, workforce and market. She provides a clear, structured lens on the external environment to support more informed, confident and aligned decision-making.Making Sense of Change: An External Lens for Strategic Decision-Making
Key Takeaways
- A clearer understanding of the external environment shaping your organisation
- The ability to step back from operational noise and identify what matters most
- A shared leadership perspective to support alignment and strategic clarity
- Greater confidence in interpreting trends and making decisions under uncertainty
- Practical insight to support planning, prioritisation and future direction
Video
Eliane Miles Showreel
Eliane delivered a highly engaging session to our 160+ leaders at our national conference… Her insights helped our leaders shift and amplify their thinking in how we can be more responsive i ... keep reading Grant Thornton
Eliane was spot on. She led our board in top-shelf exploration of strategic and demographic thinking, both specific to our organisation and the broader market.
Eliane has been fantastic to work with. I was very impressed by the analysis, research, turnaround and how she packaged and released the information to our global leaders.
The executive were effusive in thanks, and the presentation provided just the right research context to anchor the rest of our discussions.
Eliane is a stellar presenter – clear, conscience and relevant… She really set the pace and tone for a successful event.
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