Bio:

JR Lay is one of the world’s leading digital marketing authors, speakers, and advisors for growth-minded brands.

As a digital anthropologist, JR has studied the intersection of marketing, sales, technology, and human behavior for over twenty years. He wrote the best-selling book Banking on Digital Growth, and he hosts the Banking on Digital Growth podcast, which is ranked among the top five percent of all podcasts in the world.

JR is also the founder and CEO of the Digital Growth Institute, where he is on a mission to help financial brands stop losing loans and deposits. He has been named a top global financial services influencer to follow by The Financial Brand, while his insights are frequently featured in outlets such as U.S. News & World Report, Entrepreneur Magazine, Quartz, American Banker, and Credit Union Times, among many others.

Speaking Topics:

Elevate Your Executive Presence: Your humanity is your biggest advantage
Technology is accelerating faster than ever — but leadership, connection, and trust are still human. Your awareness, adaptability, and emotional intelligence are the new superpowers that separate leaders who scale from those who stall.

Ideal For: Leadership summits, entrepreneurial events, corporate culture, or innovation keynotes.

Audience Transformation
From: Overwhelmed, reactive, and disconnected from purpose.
To: Centered, aware, and aligned — leading with humanity, not just efficiency.

Top Five Audience Takeaways
1. A perspective on the biggest exponential changes over the past 30 years
2. Why confidence is your most important resource to protect as a leader
3. How to escape the confusion, chaos, and fear of AI that keep many stuck
4. How to elevate your beliefs and mindset as a leader
5. Gain a strategic framework to immediately unlock new levels of growth

Authentic Intelligence Is Your Greatest Asset: Your story is your strategy to scale your brand

While everyone’s struggling to automate their message and scale with artificial intelligence, your uniqueness as a leader is what will differentiate and elevate your brand. That’s because your story, wisdom, and empathy make up your Authentic Intelligence, the most valuable form of IP you own in the Age of AI.

Ideal Fit: Marketing, entrepreneurship, and creator economy conferences; brand storytelling and leadership events.

Audience Transformation
From: Feeling invisible and uncertain how to stand out.
To: Confident in unlocking and sharing their unique story, mission, and message.

Top Five Audience Takeaways
1. The biggest shifts in marketing, sales, and branding over the past 30 years
2. Why inspiration is the next level of influence in marketing and sales
3. How to turn any prospect conversations into content multipliers
4. How to record once and amplify your message 10x
5. Gain a strategic framework to unlock and share your unique wisdom

You’re One Question Away from Your Next Level Up: Curiosity holds the key that unlocks new levels of growth

Growth doesn’t come from knowing more, it comes from asking better questions. To yourself. To your team. To your family. Your biggest transformation begins the moment you stop avoiding the truth and start asking questions that lead to your biggest breakthroughs and innovations.

Ideal Fit: Leadership retreats, coaching conferences, organizational transformation events, and personal development summits.

Audience Transformation
From: Stuck in cycles of overthinking or self-doubt.
To: Increased courage and confidence from leading through questions, not control.

Top Five Audience Takeaways
1. The neuroscience of questions and why they hold the key to your future
2. Why is your mind the most important technology to master
3. How to transform your biggest obstacles into new opportunities and innovations
4. How to turn your biggest fear into fuel and your pain into a platform that elevates others
5. Gain a strategic framework to unlock new growth every 90 days

Banking on Digital Growth: Maximize Your Marketing and Sales in the Age of AI

Websites. Marketing automation. Email. Social media. Data and analytics. AI. The list of digital growth strategies and tactics can feel overwhelming and frustrating as technology, consumer behavior, and competition continue to change.

As a result of all of these changes, it’s easy to get stuck and held back by four distinct fears as legacy marketing and sales systems and thinking limit an organization’s future growth potential.

But it does not have to be this way for you and your event attendees, as digital growth is a journey that unifies marketing, sales, and leadership teams to level up growth in the Age of AI.

In this interactive keynote session, your attendees will:

1. Increase their confidence by developing a purpose that helps them break free from marketing and sales beliefs of the past.
2. Unify marketing, sales, and leadership teams around the emotive buying journey rooted within the consumer's mind.
3. Leave with a communication framework to guide customers beyond the pains of the present toward an even bigger future.