David Homan

David's newest keynote, built for corporate audiences adopting AI. The argument: humanity will not be lost when AI becomes globally accepted — but the winners will treat relationships and trust as their growth engine. David walks through how ethical AI must be designed to change human behavior for the better, drawing on his work building SOAR Connect around privacy, opt-in, and consent, and shows leaders where to hold the line between automation and community.

We spend our lives waiting for the moment someone recognizes our brilliance and gives us our chance. David flips that: success is almost entirely rooted in trusted relationships — no one has ever made it without a purposeful community behind them — and we get only four or five major moments in life to turn our network into our champions. Instead of a short-term hack, this keynote gives the audience an engine that runs purposefully and strategically toward the introduction that changes their life. Delivered as the breakfast keynote at CIO Leadership Live, where every table stayed engaged to the end.

The framework behind Orchestrating Connection. Staying curious and vulnerable moves a relationship toward its only true measurement of trust: an act of generosity. Surrounding yourself with people who don't look or think like you builds new ecosystems. The mindset shift is from give-and-take to a system of generosity and gratitude — because the most valuable gift is helping someone do what they couldn't do alone, and when they honor that, the relationship lasts a lifetime.

A keynote on presence and reputation. David starts with the genuine first connection — deep listening, full presence, never looking past the person in front of you — then builds to the payoff: the impression you leave behind becomes your reputation, and you've arrived when your name comes up in rooms you're not in.

Without an intentional standard for who gets in, a network becomes bloated and worthless. Takers extract value without reciprocating and cost far more than time — and the most dangerous ones are the hardest to spot. David teaches the filters purposeful connectors use to protect their calendar and build communities on natural givers, ending with his ultimate test: would you leave your kids with this person?