Why I Pursued the CSP® — and What Speaking Has Always Really Been About

I have a confession about speaking.

When people ask, as they occasionally do, why I became a speaker, what drew me to the profession — and why I travel to stages around the world year after year, why I keep writing and refining and honing what I say — I sometimes struggle to give a tidy answer. Or at least, the expected answer. Because I think the expected answer involves passion, or platform, or mission.

And all of that is true. But the truest answer is a little quieter, a little subtler, and even a little sneakier.

The stage is a magical forum where speaking becomes the most powerful form of listening.

When I’m on stage, I’m watching. I’m noticing which idea lands and which one slides past. I’m seeing where a roomful of leaders exhales because something they half-believed but wouldn’t dare say just got named out loud. I’m learning, in real time, what people are carrying and what they’re ready to set down. It seems that to many people the appeal of the stage might be that it’s a broadcast tower. But it’s not. The stage is a feedback loop.

I’m also aware, every single time, of the weight of the invitation. To be given a platform — especially with audiences making consequential decisions about technology and their organizations and the humans those decisions affect — is a privilege I don’t take lightly. These rooms are full of people who will go back to their offices and make calls about AI implementation, about workforce strategy, about what kind of future they’re building. The stage is a lever. I want to use it well.

This is why I’ve long believed that speaking is inseparable from writing. My books sharpen my thinking into frameworks I can offer from a stage. The stage pressure-tests those frameworks against real audiences. What resonates gets refined. What confuses me gets clarified. What surprises me becomes the next thing I write. The loop never closes — and I hope it never does.

So when I say I’m proud to have earned the Certified Speaking Professional® (CSP®) designation from the National Speakers Association, the pride isn’t really about a credential. It’s about everything the credential represents: years of showing up, learning, failing to land something and trying again differently, building relationships with clients and audiences and bureaus and fellow speakers who have made me sharper and more useful.

The CSP® is NSA’s highest earned designation. It requires demonstrated commitment across years of professional speaking — plenty of volume, but not just volume: it’s much more about the consistency and care. I’m honored to have met the standard.

More than the designation, though, I’m grateful for the practice. For every stage that taught me something. For every audience that trusted me with their attention. For every fellow speaker who modeled what it looks like to hold a platform with both substance and generosity.

If you’ve sat in a room while I was speaking: thank you. You were part of this.

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Kate O’Neill, the Tech Humanist, is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm helping leaders navigate the human dimensions of technology and transformation. She is a Thinkers50-ranked management thinker, keynote speaker, and the author of six books including What Matters Next. Learn more at koinsights.com.