Speaking
Talks on confidence, commercial credibility and building marketing teams a board can trust.
I speak to founders, CEOs, investors and marketing leaders. My talks bring together 20 years of marketing leadership in SaaS and an MSc in Psychology. They’re practical, honest about what’s known and what isn’t, and built for senior audiences.
Confidence is a commercial skill
30-40 minutes (20-minute version available) · Talk or session
Most founders can tell when a marketing team lacks confidence. Few know what to do about it. Psychologists have studied belief in one’s own ability, known as self-efficacy, for decades, and it’s linked to how people perform at work. This talk translates that research for the people running growing SaaS businesses: where confidence comes from, why it so often drops as marketing moves closer to the board, and the practical conditions that build it.
You’ll leave with:
- A way to spot when a team’s confidence, not its skill, is the bottleneck
- The four sources of confidence, and how a leader’s feedback and first assignments shape them
- Where confidence shows up in what a board sees: how a team forecasts, reports and handles hard questions
Small, honest research beats big claims
10-20 minutes · Short talk, panel or podcast
I once ran a study into whether two weeks of daily journaling changed how capable people felt at work. It was 29 people, with no control group, during lockdown, so I can’t tell you it works. What it taught me is how to ask good questions, listen to the answers and be honest about what small research can and can’t say. This short talk shows how any team can run credible research on a modest budget, and why saying “here’s what we don’t know” builds more trust than a confident claim.
You’ll leave with:
- Why open questions often tell you more than a closed survey
- How to state your limits so people believe the rest
- A simple way to run credible research inside your own business
Who it’s for
- Founders and CEOs of growing SaaS businesses
- Leadership teams and boards
- Investors and portfolio communities
- Marketing leaders and their teams
About me
I’m Darren Gallagher, a SaaS marketing leader with 20 years’ experience across digital performance, brand transformation and organisational design. I hold an MSc in Psychology from Leeds Beckett University, where my research looked at self-reflection and perceived self-efficacy at work. I speak about confidence, commercial credibility and building marketing teams that founders and investors can trust.
Enquiries
If you’re organising an event, podcast or panel for founders, SaaS leaders or investors, I’d love to hear about it. Tell me about the audience, format and date, and I’ll tailor the session to them.