Karl D. Speak is a global expert known for his pragmatic and unconventional approach to using brand as a leadership platform for gaining customer loyalty and employee engagement. Karl's innovative work on corporate brand strategy, personal brand and internal brand building has been implemented in companies in 23 countries. His best selling book, Be Your Own Brand, is translated into 12 languages and has sold over 80,000 copies. In January 2011 a revised and expanded version of Be Your Own Brand was released to leverage the global success of the first edition and the growing popularity of personal brand.

Brand Tool Box, Ltd., the company he founded over 27 years ago, is the global leader in developing and implementing internal brand-building programs. It is a unique professional services organization melding world-class brand expertise and organizational development best practices to help organizations build and nourish customer-centric culture alignment. As an accomplished presenter, Karl speaks to many different types of audiences around the world. His energetic style and wide-reaching knowledge of brand make him a favorite speaker with corporate audiences of marketing, sales, and executive teams.

Through Brand Tool Box, Karl has implemented his contemporary approach to brand management and internal brand building with a wide range of corporate clients. Clients such as 3M, LeadingAge, American Express, AT&T, BASF, BMW, Cabela's, Cargill, Consumers Energy, EDMC, FedEx, Honeywell, IBM, ING, Mosaic, Motorola, Securian, Skandia, Sony Corporation, St. Jude Medical, Syngenta, Target Corporation, The Scotts Company, The Wall Street Journal, Toro, and Walgreens have benefited from Karl's consulting and internal brand building programs.

Karl also serves as an "expert witness" in legal cases involving matters relating to brand.

Karl holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota. Karl teaches in the MBA programs at University of Minnesota, Saint Thomas University, and has been guest lecturer at University of Westminster in London, Capella University, ESADE University in Madrid, among others.

Karl's boardroom experience includes being a board member of Mesa Holdings, VocalEssence, MAP and serving as the chair of the board of The Design Management Institute.

What Every Executive Team Needs To Know About Brand And Why It Matters To The Consistent Growth Of Their Organization: Brand management is no longer a niche marketing concept for consumer packaged goods companies. Brand building is customer relationship building - a competency important to every organization. Successful executives are adding an understanding of brand management to their core leadership skills. This executive-level presentation will provide the audience with a real world, pragmatic understanding of brand - on their terms. No one has more experience helping executives understand how brand relates to their business than Karl D. Speak. This is no academic presentation - it's practical and to the point and, most importantly, real world. This presentation will provide each executive with a working knowledge of the core concepts of brand and a framework to apply them to their organization and business strategy. It will supply the executive with a set of learning tools which is reinforced with relevant case study examples. Improving The Relationship Intelligence Of Your Organization: Is your organization having a hard time attracting and retaining loyal customers? Would you like to improve the "relationship intelligence" of your organization? Loyal customers are becoming recognized as an important asset class that is demanding the attention of executives. This real-world executive level speech will introduce senior managers to the discipline of relationship management. This emerging management discipline has proven to provide the framework that connects and focuses the organization and its processes to building and sustaining loyal customer relationships. Building A Framework For Consistent Brand-Building Practices: Does all of your marketing team have a common understanding of brand management and how it applies to growing your business? Is your marketing team so busy with day-to-day activities that your brand(s) are growing in "fits and starts?" This mini-seminar will provide your marketing team with an MBA-quality learning experience in brand management. Although robust, the brand management concepts will be presented in real-world terms - academic strength/real-world application and excitement. This presentation will be customized to incorporate relevant case studies and topics. A key element will be the interactive dialogue focused on the issues and challenges tailored to the audience's business. This presentation has been continually updated for over 15 years. Contemporary Issues And Topics In Brand Management: Are you having trouble keeping up with the latest trends in your industry, let alone brand management? If brand management is an integral part of your business strategy, this topic is just as important as the trends in your industry. Building strong brands in today's business environment presents new challenges, from corporate transparency to an abundance of brand extensions. The discipline of brand management must be adapted to adjust to these changing needs and challenges. This presentation will provide the audience of marketing professionals with insight to the contemporary issues in brand management, supported by case study examples. Improving Your Organization's Brand Management Competency: Do you know how well your brand is doing? Just like every organization has a quarterly check of their financial health, getting a "check-up" of your organization's brand management competency is vitally important to ensuring the success of the company. Every organization has certain strengths and weaknesses in their brand-building skills and activities. It is vital for any organization to understand and gain consensus around these opportunities and challenges before embarking on any brand-management initiative. This presentation will provide the audience with a framework to evaluate their organization's brand-management competency as well as a set of tools to assist the organization in moving to the next level of brand management competency. Brand Building For Sales Executives And Sales Professionals: Is your sales force truly integrated with the vision and goals of your organization? Are they fully leveraging all their strengths to create deeper, more productive relationships with your customers? Nobody appreciates the value of relationships more than sales professionals. This upbeat, engaging speech uses the concepts of brand to create a framework for sales professionals to improve their relationship-building skills. Using the concepts from Be Your Own Brand, a book on personal brand co-authored by Karl D. Speak, the sales professional will learn how to leverage their personal brand for better sales results. In addition, the audience will learn how to integrate their brand strengths with the brand equity of the organization to build loyal customer relationships and build their personal brand along the way. Brand Building For Everyone: You know brand is important. However, you are looking for a way to introduce the concept to your employees that won't overwhelm them, but excite them about what brand can do for themselves and the organization. Brand is one of the most recognizable and intuitive concepts in the entire business lexicon. Yes, brand is a concept that has mass appeal because every employee uses and trusts brands in their everyday life. This speech presents the concept of brand in a very approachable, fun and consumer-friendly way. The audience is able to quickly translate their new, user-friendly understanding of brands into their behaviors that can help the organization grow its brand. This supercharged fun speech will enable each individual to better understand how to make even more contributions to each customer by being more of who they are, not less. Igniting Brand Power From The Inside Out: Do the employees in your organization understand what the brand of your organization is all about? More importantly, are they able to identify with the values of the organization by finding the common thread between their values and that of the organization? The strength of an organization's brand building is determined in large part by its internal brand building. Or, in other words, the brand on the outside of the organization is only as strong as the brand on the inside. This presentation provides the audience with a unique approach to harness the power created by the alignment of the personal brand of the individuals and the brand of the organization. Personal Brand - Using The Power Of Personal Brand To Achieve More Success In Your Organization: Do your employees live the brand of your organization every day, in every interaction? Do they come to work every day, excited to make a contribution, not only to the company, but to themselves as well? The concepts presented in Be Your Own Brand, a book on personal brand co-authored by Karl D. Speak, have provided real credibility to the personal brand concept. No one delivers a more enthusiastic, useful presentation that excites and enables individuals to apply the concepts of personal brand in their everyday lives. The key to business brand building is to have employees "live the brand" of the organization. Personal brand is a very powerful framework to facilitate a real connection between each person's values and the organization's brand values. This high-energy speech is an excellent tool to kick-off an internal brand building campaign. Brand Building For Small and Medium-Size Businesses: Brand building is not just for large companies or organizations with large marketing budgets. Every organization or product has a brand. It's consistent growth is a matter of discipline. The concepts and advantages of brand building apply to all types of organizations - regardless of size or business type. This up-tempo, real-world presentation delivers small and medium business executives with a set of hands-on tools to improve their brand-building competency. The enthusiasm and relevance of this presentation are proven and flat-out guaranteed! Brand Building For Retail Sales Executives: This keynote speech will demonstrate the importance of brand building in the retail experience and how creating an emotional connection between the retailer and the customer builds a value-added relationship instead of a product-oriented relationship. This is a fundamental discipline for the retail sales executive. This presentation provides sales executives with real-world tools they can immediately implement in their stores that will build their organization's brand with every transaction. Brand Tool Box Executive Brand Workshop: The Brand Tool Box Executive Brand Workshop is a practical, interactive session to relate the fundamentals of brand management to the senior management team. In a nutshell, successful brand management starts at the top of the organization. This workshop engages the senior executives of an organization in a straightforward, down-to-business dialogue about the brand management process in their organization. The result is a management team that has a common language about brand management; clear understanding of the key brand management issues facing the organization and an action plan to improve the brand management processes in their organization. Brand Tool Box Internal Brand Leadership Workshop: This workshop provides the senior management team with the tools to act as brand leaders for the organization. Using the concept of personal brand, the executives will learn how to fine-tune their own brands to deliver key brand messages and exploit coaching opportunities to inspire brand building inside the organization. Participation in this executive-level workshop, will allow senior managers to: Understand their personal brand and how to use it to become a more effective leader. Develop a set of key messages that reinforce the organization's commitment to building stronger, more loyal customer relationships. Identify a management structure and processes that can be enhanced to build a stronger brand for the organization. Identify specific coaching opportunities which will inspire consistent brand building inside the organization. Brand Tool Box Brand Alignment Workshop: Employees can't be told to live the brand - it just doesn't work that way. The most effective brand building is organic or happens from the bottom up within the organization. This training experience introduces all employees to brand, using the personal brand concepts from the successful book, Be Your Own Brand. True brand building happens as individuals make real-life connections between their personal brand values and the brand values of the organization. After attending the workshop, participants will be able to: Define and understand their personal brand to achieve their personal and professional goals and become more of who they are. Define and understand how a strong business brand creates competitive advantage for organizations. Understand the connection between their personal brand and the brand of the organization and how that alignment builds stronger relationships with customers. Brand Tool Box Personal Brand Workshop: "Do you see yourself as well-informed, but others think you are a know-it-all? Do you see yourself as a hard worker, while others think you're a workaholic?" These are examples of dilemmas faced by most people because a personal brand is based upon the perceptions others have rather than what one thinks their brand is. A personal brand has its foundation in how one consistently uses their values to make a difference, positive or negative, with another person. Based on the very successful book, Be Your Own Brand, this workshop will introduce participants to principles of personal brand as a new relationship-building skill. Participants will leave with the knowledge and tools needed to help build strong personal brands that will make a difference in both their personal and professional lives.