Where our consulting work becomes a stage.
Keynotes, workshops, intensives, and expert commentary for associations, cohorts, podcasts, and publications. We extend the expertise we use with clients every day to audiences where the fit is mutual.
Current practice. Not recycled theory.
Johanna Watson, Shannon Talbot, and John Whaley bring decades of combined experience facilitating, educating, and public speaking. We extend that capability to audiences where the fit is mutual.
Everything we present draws from active client work. When Johanna speaks on coaching-centered leadership, she is teaching what she coaches executives through each week. When Shannon speaks on the talent private equity is buying, she is placing those leaders in real time. When John facilitates a 10KSB cohort, he is delivering material he has used to guide hundreds of small business owners through growth decisions. Our content is current because our consulting is current.
This capability stands on its own and is larger than any single framework, including the E.L.E.V.A.T.E. Coaching Model. Speaking, media, and facilitation are how we scale the relationships and ideas that already define our consulting work.
Three practitioners. One point of view.
Johanna brings the executive search and coaching practice. Shannon brings the private equity and professional services talent practice. John brings the growth strategy and cohort facilitation practice. Together they cover the full arc from hiring and developing leaders to scaling the businesses those leaders run.
Johanna Watson
Johanna is the founder and CEO of Artemis Executive Partners, a Houston-based boutique executive search and leadership development firm. She is an ICF-certified executive coach and the architect of the E.L.E.V.A.T.E. Coaching Model, the framework she uses with the CEOs, CFOs, and operating leaders she serves. Her firm operates under the Actually Interviewed (A.I.) standard across every candidate presented and holds a 94 percent two-year placement success rate.
Her speaking draws from active client work, not case studies from a decade ago. When she talks about coaching-centered leadership improving retention, it is because she has measured it. When she talks about what executive hiring looks like this quarter, it is because she is running the searches.
- Coaching-Centered Leadership. Enhancing engagement and retention through empowerment. Built on the E.L.E.V.A.T.E. Coaching Model.
- Built to Scale. How to create a business that runs without you. For advisors to business owners planning growth, succession, or exit.
- The Executive Hiring Mistake That Costs 19 Months. The real math behind a bad executive hire, and the framework to avoid it.
- Executive Presence for CFOs and Senior Finance Leaders. Reading the room, translating numbers into narrative, and communicating with impact.
- Calm In The Chaos. Inclusive leadership and change readiness for teams operating under pressure.
Shannon Talbot
Shannon has spent more than two decades placing the leaders that private equity and professional services firms depend on. She began at KPMG, where she served as national lead recruiter for International Executive Services, and went on to build and lead search practices focused on one thing: finding the finance, strategy, and operating executives who can actually perform in the equity world, not just on an org chart.
Her network runs deep in the talent private equity is buying right now: former McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Big Four strategy and consulting leaders moving into PE operations and portfolio companies. She is known for a relationship-first approach, complete confidentiality, and a specialty most firms overlook: building executive benches that include the exceptional women leaders too many search processes never reach.
- Private Equity's Real Talent Gap. Why operating experience is not the same as equity fluency, and how to tell the difference before you hire.
- Where the Consulting Talent Is Landing. MBB and Big Four strategy leaders moving into PE and portfolio companies, and what it means for your bench.
- Building Executive Benches That Include Women Leaders. Why most firms miss them, and how to reach the talent your search process never surfaces.
- Before the Hire, Not After the Fire. What PE-backed CEOs and owners should screen for when the leadership seat decides the return.
- The Business Owner's Dilemma. Leading a company that private equity is circling, and how to prepare for the conversation on your terms.
John "JonyProfit" Whaley
John is the Growth Strategist at Artemis Executive Partners and a standing facilitator inside the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. He works across five cohorts per year, two national and three Houston-based, and supports pop-up cohorts at 10KSB sites across the country. He also delivers all-day intensives to vetted business owners approved into the 10KSB program.
His background blends healthcare program management, clinical education, and structured business growth advisory. His approach to facilitation is disciplined: pre-work goes out ahead of every session, meetings become decision-making sessions rather than storytelling sessions, and every participant leaves with a plan they can execute.
- Project Management in the Field. The coach framing of project leadership. How to get out of the equation and let the team perform. The WAR method for stakeholders.
- AI for the Growing Business. A crawl-walk-run path for owners and operators who need practical adoption, not hype. Built on real workflow mapping.
- Hiring Leaders Who Fit, Perform, and Stay. The 19-month cost of a bad executive hire and the integration framework that protects against it.
- Growth Strategy for the Vetted 10KSB Owner. All-day intensive format. Goal setting, resource planning, pipeline discipline, and decision frameworks for scaling operators.
- Kickoff Meetings That Actually Work. Cutting meeting load through disciplined pre-work. For PM, operations, and leadership teams.
Available for podcast guests, news features, and publication contributions.
Executive hiring, leadership development, small business growth, and AI adoption are topics producers and journalists reach us about. We respond quickly, speak in plain language, and come prepared with real data from current client work.
Subject matter expertise for producers, journalists, and editors
- Executive hiring trends and the real cost of a bad hire
- Coaching-centered leadership and retention
- Private equity portfolio talent strategy
- Why operating experience is not the same as equity fluency
- Where consulting talent is landing: MBB and Big Four leaders moving into PE
- Building executive benches that include women leaders
- Small business growth and scaling operations
- Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses perspectives
- Practical AI adoption for growing businesses
- Succession planning and the exit-ready business
- Workforce shifts in the Gulf Coast and Texas markets
- Executive presence and communication for finance leaders
- Change readiness and leading through uncertainty
The rooms we are built for.
We select engagements based on fit. These are the audiences where our work lands, because the subject matter overlaps with what we do every day.
Virtual. Hybrid. In-person.
We have run each format, and we select based on what the audience and outcome require, not what is easiest to stage.
Are we the right fit?
We take this work seriously. Our content is built from active client practice, which means we choose engagements where that practice lands.
- When you need content grounded in current practice, not theory recycled from the conference circuit.
- When your audience needs tools they can apply immediately, not inspiration that fades by Monday.
- When you want a facilitator who shapes the room, not a speaker who performs at it.
- When a major event is coming to Houston, Texas, or our home markets and you need a subject matter expert on the stage or panel.
- When the subject is leadership, hiring, growth, executive presence, coaching, team performance, AI adoption, or scaling a business.
- When format flexibility matters. Virtual, hybrid, in-person, podcast, or media appearance.
- A 52-week touring circuit. We are not trying to be road-show speakers. Our consulting work anchors us.
- Topics outside our practice. The work has to be something we are actively doing.
- Single-session interventions inside organizations where leadership has not committed to follow-through. We can point you to better options.
- Audiences looking for pure entertainment. Our sessions are built to teach and equip, not to perform.
Where we have been in the room.
Tell us about your audience.
The more specific you can be about the event, the audience, and the outcome you want, the faster we can tell you whether we are the right fit and confirm availability.
If you prefer to skip the form, email us directly or book a call on the calendar.