Chip Conley | Founder, MEA | NYT Bestseling Author
Upgrading Style and Story for a World-Class Speaker
Even seasoned speakers need support to keep their material fresh. We’ve helped Chip Conley sharpen his stories, refine his structure, and design visual decks that match his style — so every keynote feels more moving, meaningful, and memorable, no matter the stage.
Chip Conley is on a mission. Always has been. He disrupted the hospitality industry twice: First as the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the U.S., and then as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, leading a worldwide revolution in travel.
Inspired by his experience of intergenerational mentoring as a “modern elder” at Airbnb, Chip co-founded MEA (Modern Elder Academy). As the founder of the world's first “midlife wisdom school,” Chip is now disrupting the culture of aging itself.
At every point, Chip evolves. Then he writes and speaks about it. A three-time TED speaker on the big stage, Chip is one of the world's leading experts at the intersection of business innovation, psychology and spirituality.
We’ve been fortunate to collaborate with Chip since 2012, when we helped update his classic PEAK road-show deck.
“I thought it was only in romance that you could say he or she ‘could finish my sentences for me.’ I’ve come to learn that Alison and Matt don’t just finish my sentences, they also create visual imagery and a storyline that is both profound and persuasive.”
– Chip Conley
Our Collaboration
Chip’s a master speaker. He’s also adept at partnering with specialists to help enhance his own genius. From the outset, we helped Chip think through his ideas and hone them into through-lines that would keep the audience engaged. As speech development progressed, we contributed edit recommendations for flow, sequence, and content.
We also created a series of visual slide decks, with personal storytelling, data, wisdom, and just the right amount of humor. Chip likes to “riff” onstage, tailoring content to each audience. Each slide acts as a springboard, allowing him to stay on track while pivoting when the moment calls for it.
As the years (and stages) progressed, our long-time familiarity with Chip’s body of work meant we could mine other speeches for key phrases, teachings, or personal stories.
MEA and the “Wisdom @ Work” Book Tour
After selling the boutique hotel company he started at age 26 as a rebel entrepreneur, at age 52 Chip wasn’t sure what was next. He could have easily retired. But in 2013, the young founders of Airbnb came calling, asking him to help turn their fast-growing tech startup into a global hospitality brand.
Only a few days into the job, Chip found he was simultaneously an intern learning the digital ropes, and a seasoned veteran mentoring the company’s millennial leadership. As he navigated this new ecosystem, Chip soon noticed that a new sort of “elder” was emerging in the workplace: As curious as they are wise, both wisdom keeper and wisdom seeker.
His deep inquiry led to writing New York Times bestseller Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder and building MEA, the world’s first “midlife wisdom school”: A four-acre oceanfront campus in Baja California Sur, Mexico, with a new campus now open in Santa Fe, NM.
The Talks
To talk about such a big vision, Chip created several key speeches and visual slide decks, which together form a flexible body of work he can adapt to a wide array of appearances.
His TED Salon talk in NY: What Baby Boomers Can Learn from Millennials at Work — and Vice Versa, delivered to an intimate audience in NYC, was featured on the TED.com homepage the week it launched. His message hit a chord, rising to over a million views within the first 30 days.
Chip also delivered big-think speeches at the Long Now Foundation, the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and TEDx Marin. All of these helped the audience re-define their conception of aging (what if we’re growing whole, not old?) and embrace the need for schools, tools, and rituals to celebrate midlife transitions. Chip delivered over 100 speeches in the year following his book launch, including at the world’s largest gathering of human resource professionals in Las Vegas.
Below are some of the key visuals from these presentations
Peak. A Classic Roadshow Gets a Visual Upgrade
When we began working with Chip, his book PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, was a bestseller and he’d already spoken to the concept on the TED main stage. In this talk, Chip shares Joie de Vivre's remarkable transformation while providing real world examples from other companies and showing how attendees can bring about similar changes in their work and personal lives.
Chip is a master speaker – but he felt his talk could use an update. He was close to his material and wanted thinning + editing partners to tease out new stories and re-examine the flow. We upgraded (and in many cases, reimagined) all visuals to match the sophistication of his personal brand, and the blend of wisdom and humor he brought to the stage.
Chip has since delivered the new deck hundreds (probably thousands) of times, to audiences ranging from Burners in Black Rock City to insurance salespeople in Iowa. Each time, he’s able to tailor the speech’s universal themes to the humans before him. The modular nature of the deck lets him mix & match depending on the need.
Below are some sample slides frome the “Peak” upgrade with before and after examples
The Evolution of Boutique Hotels
At the age of 26 with no industry experience, Chip transformed a seedy 1950’s “no-tell motel” in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district into The Phoenix Hotel, a legendary rock ’n’ roll hotel and crossroads for the creative. During his 24 years as CEO, Joie de Vivre grew to nearly 40 award-winning hotels with over 3,000 employees and annual revenues of $250 million.
Now an “elder statesman” in the industry, Chip took a look back — and forward — on an industry that continues to evolve. This presentation traces the origin of boutique hotels, from early 20th century resort-style hotels through the “motor hotels” sprouting along Eisenhower’s interstate highway system.
Chip details how Joie de Vivre gave travelers a unique differentiator through its focus on “identity refreshment” and diverse mix of product offerings. He makes four bold prognostications about what we’ll see in boutique hotels in 10 years — essential perspective as boutiques start looking more like chains and point of view matters more than ever.
We gave Chip’s presentation an “identity refreshment” of its own, creating a modern, light-hearted visual language that reflects his own joie de vivre.
Below are some sample slides from “The Evolution of Boutique Hotels” presentation
Creating Habitats for Innovation
Chip founded Joie de Vivre Hotels at age 26 when he transformed a seedy, no-tell-motel into The Phoenix, a now legendary rock-n-roll hotel and crossroads for the creative. Over the ensuing 25 years he built over 50 award-winning hotels. JdV also fostered one of the most innovative, self-actualized company cultures in any industry.
Collaborating closely for this new talk, we updated key slides from Chip’s previous talks and helped bring new concepts to life around the practices that allow any company to create a habitat for innovation.
The result was a visual and editorial style that’s intelligent, multi-dimensional, funny and just a little bit profound–like the man himself.
Below are some sample slides from the “Creating Habitats for Innovation” presentation
TEDx: Finding Our Humanity at Festivals
After “retiring” from his successful run as Global Head of Hospitality and Strategy at Airbnb, Chip was calibrating what’s next. Channeling his lifelong cultural curiosity, he founded Fest300 to make the best festivals in the world accessible to everyone, and give a little glimpse into what’s possible when you step outside your normal routine.
Chip’s TEDx Constitution Drive talk gave the audience a tantalizing taste of the vast banquet of human experiences that festivals have to offer. From the 100-million-person pilgrimage that is the Khubh Mela in India to the 60,000-person party that is Burning Man in the Nevada desert, both the sacred and the profane are invitations, ultimately, to connect with one another.
Working from a tight outline that Chip created, we collaborated closely with the Fest 300 team to curate the best images from around the world. We combed through thousands of images, organizing them in a visual flow that gave life to the storyline that had just the right amount of humor, enlightenment, and practical advice to entertain and inspire. The talk was a journey of both sight and sound, conveying what can be discovered when you widen your cultural horizons. To bring you face to face with the highest expression of the human spirit, whether it’s in a Balinese temple or on an Ibiza dance floor.
Writer E.M Forster’s last piece of advice to the world before he died was, “Only connect.” Festivals have always been our place to connect. That’s more important today than ever.
Below are some sample slides from the “Creating Habitats for Innovation” presentation
“I thought it was only in romance that you could say he or she ‘could finish my sentences for me.’ I’ve come to learn that Alison and Matt don’t just finish my sentences, but they also create visual imagery and a storyline that is both profound and persuasive.
Based upon my very enjoyable time working with Alimat, my speeches are more moving, more memorable, and pack much more meaning. I can’t say enough about these two.”
– Chip Conley
Founder, MEA | NYT Bestselling Author
