Speaking

Peter consistently earns high ratings as a speaker at events around the world, whether delivering a mainstage conference keynote, addressing a corporate training event or participating in an executive summit. He is able to draw on 30-years of experience in leading marketing teams across financial services, consumer products and technology. In the course of his career, Peter has built and led some of the world’s most iconic products and marketing campaigns for companies such as Hershey, Capital One, General Mills and others. Peter brings seasoned perspective and credibility to the most complex issues facing marketers today, connecting the dots between new realities and timeless truths.

Peter’s goals in his talks are to:

EQUIP his audience with high-impact learning that they can take back to their desks and put to use the next day
INSPIRE a new energy, optimism and confidence in their abilities
ELEVATE leaders and organizational culture to enable people to do the best work of their lives

Rather than pull out a cookie-cutter presentation, Peter works with each event to understand the audience and their needs so he can most effectively educate, entertain and inspire. Peter brings an approachable style and sense of humor that enables him to capture an audience’s attention and imagination.

What people say about Peter’s speeches:

“Peter isn’t just a speaker, he’s a captivator. His depth of experience, engaging style and story-telling ability give him a one-of-a-kind ability to connect.”

– John Newall, President, McKinney

“Peter is a highly engaging and compelling speaker. He is able to captivate a large audience, with differing agendas, by uniting them with a new vision of what’s possible with intelligent marketing.”

– Rob Malcolm, Director, The Hershey Company; Chairman, American Marketing Association.

“Peter delivered an exceptionally engaging keynote during the awards ceremony to a rapt group of judges (top creative directors from around the world), award winners and finalists, and other marketing industry insiders. We received a great deal of positive feedback on the quality of Peter’s presentation style, content, and message from a group whose attention is tough to keep and whose standards for excellence are high.”

– Ginger Conlon, Chief Editor and Content Strategist at MKTGInsight.com

“Peter led an executive education session for some of Google’s highest potential business leaders. In that session, Peter was supportive and inspirational as he translated his years of experience in building brands into clear and action-ready advice. The Googlers raved about his positive, constructive coaching and the motivating and insightful perspective he shared.”

– Jake Breeden, BreedenIdeas

“Peter brought such a wealth of marketing expertise to the event as the former CMO of heavyweight brands such as Hershey, Capital One and Ameritrade. Attendees certainly agreed! His session was highly rated in post-event evaluations, with comments including: “Excellent speaker!” and “Speaker was very engaging and knowledgeable. This was relevant for me even as an experienced marketer.” I’d highly recommend Peter as a compelling speaker for any marketing-focused event.

– Samantha Moore, conference organizer, Marketo Marketing Nation 2017

“While Peter was at Hershey he participated on a main stage panel at Cannes with myself and Adam Corolla and really knocked it out of the park. Peter managed to deliver 100% and keep up our momentum…the audience knew for sure who the smartest guy in the room was!”

– Marcus Peterzell, EVP Ketchum

“He was excellent, generating extremely positive attendee feedback from his engaging and inspiring keynote on navigating the rapids of digital transformation. All that, and a nice chap to work with!”

– Adam Burns, GDS CMO Data Summit

“Peter brought both experience and perspective to his address and the attendees found his talk very insightful. We’d welcome the chance to work with Peter again.”

– Ryan Johnson, VP Young & Rubicam Brand

Topics Peter can address include:

The New Da Vinci Code: Balancing Art and Science in Modern Marketing
The growing power of analytic tools, the proliferation of data sources available, and an increasingly automated marketing ecosystem bring tremendous new capabilities. They also create new risks: shifting the balance towards short-term product selling vs. long-term equity building; abdicating human insight and creativity for analytic automation. Brand owners must affirmatively address key questions around how they will make marketing decisions in this new environment, and how they will ensure the appropriate degree of human judgment, intuition and inspiration are injected into the marketing machine.

The Fertile Field: How to Build a Culture of Big Thinking
Pretty much every organization faces the challenge of igniting greater topline growth. Doing that requires fresh thinking, bold ideas, and team members who have the energy and confidence to generate those barrier-breaking ideas. Creating the kind of culture that can foster this kind of thinking calls for deft leadership and balancing the needs to direct while empowering, to encourage while challenging, to focus while opening. Some simple tools and practices can help marketing leaders on this journey.

Marketing in the Age of Trump: A Brand Survival Guide
Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you occupy, there’s no denying we’re living in a new social political reality in the Trump era. This brings a host of new risks—and opportunities—that brand leaders must carefully navigate in order to survive and thrive in this new reality.

Anatomy of a Big Idea
Every marketer seeks the holy grail of the Big Idea—that marketing campaign that is iconic, enduring and brand-defining. A campaign that becomes part of popular culture, influences language, and offers the marketer’s gift that keeps on giving year after year. With 3 decades of building brands with iconic campaigns, Peter Horst breaks down the anatomy of a big idea through examples from his own experience and from current examples.

A Prescription for CMO Digital Transformation Anxiety Syndrome
If we’re being totally honest, many CMOs share a common anxiety as they embark on digital transformation at their organizations. For many, it calls for dealing with areas outside of their accustomed wheelhouse, facing major technology investments, and ringleading a complex multi-functional undertaking. With the experience of having lived through a transformation in financial services and consumer packaged goods, Peter Horst offers sound principles for navigating through the complexities while maintaining some measure of sanity.

On-Brand and Agile: How to Succeed in Modern Marketing
As organizations move to more agile processes in support of digital, content and mobile marketing agendas, this calls for new moves and also increases the challenge of maintaining a consistent brand across channels. With the experience of implementing agile marketing teams in financial services and consumer packaged goods, Peter Horst discusses the keys to successfully implementing an agile marketing organizational while protecting the and enhancing the integrity of the brand.

Upcoming Engagements

Past Engagements