Speaker Profile · 2026
Paul S. McLean
Founder & CEO · Dreams For Life / Yayasan Impian Kehidupan
Author of The Unarmoured Leader
Too many leaders were trained to wear armour: project certainty, hold every answer, never show the crack. In an AI era where answers are increasingly cheap, that armour becomes the bottleneck. Paul's keynotes make the case, with evidence and with stories from fifteen years inside leadership teams across Asia Pacific and beyond, that emotional intelligence is the human operating system on which trust, adoption and performance are built.
Challenge the armour
Names the armoured leadership patterns that quietly drive attrition and stall change, so the room recognises itself.
Evidence, not opinion
Grounded in Gallup research, the validated EQ-i 2.0 model and outcomes from real client programs at Cisco and The Trade Desk.
Useful on Monday
Every delegate leaves with frameworks and questions they can apply the following week, with or without IGNITE.
Each session is tailored to the event theme, the audience and the time slot. Every talk carries the same thread: human potential is mostly untapped, and emotional intelligence is how leaders release it.
The Unarmoured Leader
Why emotional intelligence is the operating system for leadership in the AI era. As AI absorbs routine analysis, the leader's value shifts to judgement, inquiry, trust and leading people through change.
From Event to Habit
Why a two day workshop cannot rewire a thirty year habit, and how the Prepare → Learn → Perform model turns leadership development into a measurable twelve month habit system HR can report to the board.
The Human Side of Selling
Storytelling, presence, discovery and negotiation taught with emotional intelligence rigour, drawn from the SPEND Sales Mastery Academy and six years leading JAPAC Sales Effectiveness at Palo Alto Networks.
Potential Is Universal
What building 26 community-led schools across Indonesia teaches leaders about untapped potential, local ownership and purpose that people can actually feel.
Fifteen years reading senior rooms, now on the main stage.
Paul built his craft facilitating leaders, from first-time managers to thirty year veterans rewiring ingrained habit. He reads the temperature of a room within minutes, then holds the energy and the psychological safety that let an audience lean in.
His sessions are practical, evidence based and framework led. They are not a product pitch: the content is usable by any organisation, and the measure of success is what delegates do differently afterwards, not applause.
Organisations are investing heavily in AI to make their people faster and smarter. The outcomes that decide whether that investment pays back (trust, adoption, retention and the willingness to change) are human, and they depend on how leaders lead.
Sources: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2023 (US$8.8T); Gallup, State of the American Manager 2015 (70%); Center for Creative Leadership, Gentry, Weber & Sadri, Empathy in the Workplace: A Tool for Effective Leadership (empathy finding).
Opening or closing keynote
A 25 to 30 minute keynote that sets the tone for a conference or leadership summit, delivered in person or live-virtual.
Case study session
Client challenge, approach and outcome, drawn from leadership and sales academies delivered for Cisco Asia Pacific and The Trade Desk.
Panel discussions
A grounded voice on leadership, emotional intelligence, learning design and the human side of AI adoption.
Executive masterclass
An extended, immersive session for leadership teams that want to move from insight to practised behaviour in the room.
Founder, IGNITE Performance FZCO
2024 to present. ASPIRE, E.I. Academy and SPEND academies, plus 1:1 executive coaching.
Head of JAPAC Sales Effectiveness & Leadership Development
Palo Alto Networks, 2018 to 2024.
External Facilitator, Deloitte University Asia Pacific
2024 to present.
Tigerhall Thinkfluencer
2023 to present.
Author, The Unarmoured Leader
5 principles, 10 chapters, 50 numbered laws, plus the white paper The Unarmoured Edge (2026).
EQ-i 2.0 & EQ 360 Certified Coach
Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Expert Facilitator.
Certified Executive Coach
Center for Executive Coaching. CliftonStrengths, Insights Discovery and Everything DiSC certified.
Earlier APAC leadership roles
Qlik, Samsung Electronics, Konica Minolta and Fuji Xerox.
“Post-Academy, our team is more confident, curious and consultative. IGNITE didn't just train our team. They rewired how we engage.”
“We've ten-folded our outcomes. The work broke down barriers, helping us understand each other better and naturalising our teamwork.”
Paul S. McLean is a keynote speaker, certified executive coach and the author of The Unarmoured Leader. He has spent fifteen years developing leaders and sales teams across Asia Pacific, including six years as Head of JAPAC Sales Effectiveness & Leadership Development at Palo Alto Networks.
As founder of IGNITE Performance FZCO, he designs and delivers leadership academies built on how the brain actually learns, forgets and rebuilds habit, for clients including Cisco and The Trade Desk. He is also an external facilitator for Deloitte University Asia Pacific.
His premise, set out in his white paper The Unarmoured Edge, is deliberately un-fluffy: the EQ-i 2.0 framework turns what others call soft skills into fifteen trainable, measurable behaviours, and leaders who build them create the trust that makes change stick.
He speaks in person and live-virtual across APAC, ANZ, EMEA and the USA, is based between Asia and Dubai, and is equally comfortable with intimate executive groups and large, cross-cultural audiences.
Approved copy for your event app, programme and MC. Use as written.
Paul S. McLean is a keynote speaker, executive coach and author of The Unarmoured Leader. Founder of IGNITE Performance FZCO, he spent six years leading JAPAC Sales Effectiveness and Leadership Development at Palo Alto Networks and now develops leaders at organisations including Cisco and The Trade Desk. He speaks on emotional intelligence as the operating system for leadership in the AI era.
Paul S. McLean is a keynote speaker, certified executive coach and author of The Unarmoured Leader. For fifteen years he has developed leaders and sales teams across Asia Pacific, including six years as Head of JAPAC Sales Effectiveness and Leadership Development at Palo Alto Networks. As founder of IGNITE Performance FZCO, he designs leadership academies for organisations including Cisco and The Trade Desk, and he is an external facilitator for Deloitte University Asia Pacific. Certified in EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360, Paul argues that emotional intelligence is the human operating system on which trust, adoption and performance are built. He is also the founder of Dreams For Life, which has opened 26 community-led schools across Indonesia and given more than 1,808 children free early childhood education. He is based between Asia and Dubai.
Our next speaker has spent fifteen years in the rooms where leaders decide whether change sticks. He wrote The Unarmoured Leader, he coaches leaders at Cisco and The Trade Desk, and he founded a charity that has opened 26 community schools across Indonesia. Please welcome Paul S. McLean.
Dreams For Life: developing human potential from the very first years.
The same belief that runs through every keynote, that potential is universal and mostly untapped, is why Paul founded Dreams For Life / Yayasan Impian Kehidupan in 2016, a registered Australian & Indonesian charity delivering free, Montessori-inspired early childhood education to children who need it most. One Montessori-in-a-Box gives 60 children a full year of learning and trains 4 community members to become their village's teachers, for under USD$600.
A portion of every IGNITE engagement funds Dreams For Life. Booking Paul to speak doesn't just move your audience, it helps open the next community school. DGR-endorsed; donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible. dreamsforlife.org
Book Paul for your next stage.
Share your event theme, audience and date, and Paul will tailor a keynote, case study session, panel contribution or masterclass to it. In person across Asia, the Middle East and beyond, or live-virtual.