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Bright Ideas, Bold Delivery, Big Impact

Engaging Talks and inspiring Keynotes that compel audiences to think differently and take action

A photo of Lena with curly hair and glasses is speaking or presenting on stage against a dark blue background, holding a small electronic device and gesturing with her hands.

What value can I bring to your next event?

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Highlights

Over the past twelve years, I have delivered dozens of highly-rated keynotes and talks at numerous conferences across the globe.
My presentations regularly get top ratings from audiences, no matter if in-person or online.

A GIF of Lena waving, with curly hair and glasses speaking at a conference stage with a purple background and pink text.

Find the full archive of my presentations below.

Keynotes

Start here: Driving change where you are

SWAN Conference, Opening Keynote, 2025

An 850-meter beaver dam, built one stick at a time over 40 years, holds 70,000 cubic meters of water — and it was only discovered because someone happened to look at Google Earth. What can a one-meter-tall, iron-toothed rodent teach us about leading organizational change? More than you'd expect.

In this keynote, Lena Reinhard draws on 20 years of experience driving change across startups, corporations, NGOs responding to global crises, and fast-scaling tech companies to confront a truth most leadership books skip over: real change doesn't happen in strategy off-sites and celebratory dinners. It happens on a rainy Monday morning when you're double-booked, behind on email, and your boss needs you now.

Through the stories of leaders she's coached — the CEO drowning in firefighting instead of strategy, the VP flying blind without leading indicators, the founder puzzled by a team that "just doesn't get it" — Lena shares simple tools that unlock outsized impact. You'll walk away with a concrete toolkit for enabling yourself, improving your systems, and activating your teams — and a challenge to pick one tool and try it before the week is out.

Because change isn't about grand gestures: It's about showing up, one branch at a time, with iron teeth and transparent eyelids — and being the beaver you want to see in the world.

Works on my machine, or “problem is between keyboard and chair”

JSConf Budapest, Opening Keynote, 2016

You've heard it before: "It works on my machine" and you know the punchline "so your problem isn't real". ” Sometimes a bug just won't appear on your system: computers are fickle beasts full of subtlety. Humans, too, but more so: we have habits, preferences, and biases, and our backgrounds and opportunities vary wildly. Even the technology industry itself is a perfect example of legacy spaghetti code (without unit tests), and this makes it very hard to debug for a better future.

In this talk, we will look at the many facets that affect our decision-making and interactions and work out how we can change for the better. Together, we will take a look at the effects that our software has on the daily lives of the thousands of people who are using it.

You’ll learn what you can do as an individual to support change in a positive direction and how you can help debug this system and make a difference in the tech industry. You’ll leave knowing about practical things you can do in your daily life to make the tech industry a better, more inclusive, and diverse environment that is a better place for everyone.

a talk about nothing

.concat() closing keynote, 2015

This talk was a finalist for "Conference Talk of the Year" in the .net awards 2015.

In this talk, we will explore nothing. And, yes, literally nothing. Together we’ll take a look behind the curtains of reality and explore some of the underlying rules that shape our existence. We will dig into ancient philosophy, the history and today's status physics and maths, look into the origins of computing, programming and analyse the way we develop software today. We’ll see how nothing influences us, how it shapes our behaviour every day and how nothing can help us grow – in our professions and, even more, as humans. “Nothing really matters,”, Freddie Mercury wrote in a song that was released 40 years ago. I want to show you how right he is.

Note: The better term for "transsexual" or "transgender" would have been "trans", "trans people" or "trans folks". I apologize for using inaccurate terminology and am grateful to the folks who gave me this feedback.

Talks

Engaging, practical, audience-oriented and concise presentations about big topics

Managing your boss: Debugging the most critical relationship in your work life

As much as many bosses try their best, they may not always be the stellar leaders and managers that we all wish we had: Hyper-busy, not great at communicating changes, having trouble sharing their expectations or articulating strategy, oscillating between micromanaging and being very hands-off or even absent, or overloading their reports, many of them struggle to grow their own role as the organization changes.

You’ll learn how to reverse engineer the way your boss works and walk away with a practical framework and tools that you can start using immediately and that will improve how you manage up, including:

  • Signs that you need to invest more in how you manage up, common pitfalls, and how to address them

  • “Is it me?”: How to assess what you can change and what to ask your boss for

  • How to get your boss out of your business: Tools to drive alignment and clarity between you and your boss, and manage their perception of your and your team’s work

This talk is for anyone who has a manager. No matter your role, you will walk away with practical approaches to transform your relationship with your manager and accelerate your career growth.

What engineering managers should do (and why we don’t)

Technical leadership. Hands-on coding. Process management. Project management. Delivery. People management. Architecture decisions. Product oversight. Hiring.— With so many things on an engineering manager’s plate, is it any wonder that many great engineers flounder as engineering managers?

In this talk, I will explain how our organizations currently set engineering managers up to fail and what we need to change to help them and their teams succeed.

You will leave with a clearer understanding of what progressive, people-centric engineering management should look like, how to establish it in your organization, and how rethinking your approach to engineering management will help your engineering teams thrive.

Measuring and Improving Engineering Productivity, and Taking Your Teams Along

After years of rapid growth, the winds have changed in many tech companies, with strategy changes, budget cuts, restructurings, and layoffs. Productivity and efficiency have become the business buzzwords of the season, and while pressure towards “more engineering productivity” is mounting in many organizations, it can be difficult to apply these abstract concepts to engineering teams and turn them into concrete actions that don’t alienate your team and lead to lasting impact that aligns with your stakeholders’ needs. I’m here to help. In this talk, we’ll go:

  • Beyond buzzwords: What do productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness mean?

  • Beyond “implementing DORA metrics,” How can you understand and improve your team's productivity as a technical or people leader?

  • Beyond your team: How can you manage up effectively to keep your bosses informed and ensure alignment with organizational goals?

Having led dozens of teams through times of high change, I know that leading during a tech downturn presents unique challenges. You will take away actionable steps to help you improve on your team, and lead successfully through uncertain times.

How to become the strategic leader you need to be

You may have heard your boss say it: "You need to be more strategic!". Maybe it came up in your latest performance review. Or you just want to work more strategically in order to fill all parts of your role as a leader. Or maybe your team/organisation needs more strategic support to help them succeed. But now you're wondering:

  • What does it actually mean to really think and act strategically?

  • What actions can you take to become more strategic every day?

  • How can you improve your strategic leadership skills? And how can you create space for strategy in your busy schedule?

You're not alone with these questions! Many leaders want to (or even need to!) create space for more strategic work, but it can be really hard to do so.

You'll walk away with practical tips that you can start implementing tomorrow to help you become a more strategic leader and, consequently, more effective and successful in your role.

Speaking at your event

 

A passionate storyteller

I'm a passionate storyteller with deep industry experience across a variety of roles. As a career changer with a cross-functional background and a rapidly-growing career, I bring a unique perspective on building software teams and organisations.

My engaging, inspiring, action-oriented presentations regularly receive top ratings at events and positive remarks on social media. They are always tailored to the event and your needs, and I work closely with organiser teams to ensure the best experience for your attendees.

Areas of expertise

  • Leading through change

  • Hypergrowth and sustaining engineering organisations in times of fast growth

  • Engineering hiring and how to do it well

  • Team building for globally distributed teams

  • Measuring engineering productivity

  • Engineering leadership skills, roles, growth, and transformational leadership

  • Engineering career development and career frameworks

Audience Feedback

“The single most powerful talk I've ever seen. Thank you for rightly challenging everyone who works in tech.”

“Wow! Great talk. So much good info and a challenge to grow!”

“It was terrific! I can see putting into action a lot of the things you spoke about.”

“Your talk was amazing! I can actually use this strategy to become more strategic.”

“Wow! Standing ovation for Lena! I think her extensive, hard-hitting cultural critique really resonated with the audience.”

“I loved your talk about Engineering Management and it has greatly helped me to train for the role.”

“You were a stand-out speaker: Passionate, incredibly well-researched, and what you had to say really resonated with me.”

A GIF of Lena with glasses and wavy hair. She stands against a pink and blue geometric background, holding a remote control, wearing a black shirt and black pants.

All My Keynotes & talks So Far

2026

  • We Were Meant To Be - Opening Keynote, software development conference, May 2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2014-2017