Change is human
before it is strategic.
Makeda Coleman speaks to the part of transformation most rooms avoid: the people who have to live inside it. Leaders are asked to guide others through ambiguity. Teams are asked to keep moving when the path is still forming. Executives are asked to lead confidently through a season no one can fully forecast. She brings the discipline of an enterprise change practitioner and the sensibility of someone who has spent a lifetime learning how people actually move.
For more of her thinking on change leadership and transformation, visit Pine 33° Signal.
She learned change early.
Makeda’s family moved repeatedly throughout the eastern United States during her childhood, and she attended four different middle schools. Every move meant entering a new environment without a choice in the matter. New people. New expectations. New social dynamics. New rules she had to learn quickly.
Long before she had language for change leadership, she was learning to navigate the questions that surface whenever change is outside our control: What is changing? What does it mean for me? What is expected of me now? And how do I adapt without losing myself in the process?
What carried her through was curiosity. Instead of withdrawing from what she could not control, she learned to observe, ask questions, understand the environment, and adapt. That became more than a way of navigating childhood, it became her framework for understanding people.
From curiosity to strategy.
That same curiosity now shapes how Makeda approaches change leadership. More than two decades across banking, insurance, wealth management, and technology have given her a rare range of perspective, allowing her to see both sides of transformation: the business case and the human experience, the strategy and the people responsible for carrying it forward.
As a speaker, Makeda brings candor, storytelling, business insight, and technical depth to complex conversations about change. She connects with audiences while challenging them to think differently about leadership, transformation, and what it takes to help people move through change.
Audiences leave with a fresh perspective, practical insight, and a clearer understanding of how leaders can lead change well.
Bring Makeda to your stage.
Speaking and coaching engagements are booked separately from advisory work and remain open while the practice is otherwise committed. Share the audience, the moment your organization is in, and what you need them to walk out believing.
Speaking and coaching engagements are independent of Makeda Coleman’s corporate roles and commitments. All requests are reviewed for potential conflicts of interest before any engagement is confirmed.
Responses within five business days.
Topics
Formats
01Leading Through UncertaintyRead more
Reorganizations, restructurings, leadership turnover, mergers. How executives hold a team together when they cannot yet promise an outcome — and what candor, cadence, and presence do for trust when answers are scarce.
KeynoteRead more
45–60 minutes. Conferences, national sales meetings, leadership summits.
02The Psychology of AdoptionRead more
People do not resist change. They resist loss. A practical look at what the brain does under organizational change, and how leaders can work with human wiring instead of against it.
Executive WorkshopRead more
Half day or full day. Leadership teams working a live transformation.
03The Executive Anchor™Read more
How leadership teams stay aligned around strategy, leadership, and execution when a transformation begins pulling them apart — and how alignment becomes an enduring institutional capability.
Fireside & PanelRead more
Moderated conversation or panel seat on change, adoption, and leadership.
04Building a Change-Capable OrganizationRead more
Moving beyond one-off program governance to a culture where teams are equipped and empowered to lead every transformation that follows.
Executive CoachingRead more
Ongoing one-to-one coaching for leaders carrying an organization through change.
Every talk is tailored to its audience, whether it is a leadership summit, an executive retreat, or a team navigating a live transition.