Leslie Martinich

Abstract: Why do some organizations seem to move effortlessly while others struggle, even when both are filled with talented people?

The difference may not be strategy, talent, or leadership style. It may be something hiding in plain sight: trust.

Trust is often treated as a “soft” leadership quality. In this highly interactive session, we’ll investigate it as something else: an economic force. When trust goes down, costs go up: in time, money, complexity, oversight, employee energy, and lost opportunity. When trust goes up, many of those costs come down.

Through stories, humor, real-world examples, and audience participation, we’ll uncover the hidden “trust taxes” organizations pay every day and explore the behaviors that create (or destroy) trust with employees, colleagues, prospects, and clients.

Participants will apply a simple Trust/Cost model to their own firms and identify opportunities to reduce friction, strengthen relationships, increase commitment, and improve performance.

Participants will leave with a different way of looking at leadership. And they’ll have one powerful question to take back to their firms: What are we paying for because trust is missing?

Biography:

Leslie Martinich, a CS pioneer who wrote natural language interfaces and algorithms to support AI in the 1980s, helps companies build productive, innovative teams. Her team delivered the first commercial Remote Procedure Calls software, allowing, for the first time, devices to execute code and access data on separate machines.  Her early work in creating and successfully productizing radical innovations inspired years of research and publications on the art of managing innovations.

She created a method to teach mid-level tech managers the skills they need to advance their careers, providing a robust leadership bench for their firms.  The method works: 70% of participants in her 1-year program advanced their careers to the VP or C-Level within 10 years.

She has received many awards and commendations over the years. Chosen to be the IEEE-USA Congressional Fellow in 2012, she has gone on to be a Distinguished Lecturer and speak on every continent (save Antarctica!), engaging audiences with hilarious tales from the trenches.

Her book on trusted leadership and how to use AI to manage both on-site and remote teams is due out in late 2026.

Address:United States