Peter Laughter

Storyteller – Speaker – Leveraging the power of narrative to drive change and humanize business by transforming the way we connect with talent

Humility is a great teacher.

Humility earned through arrogance is painful but nonetheless effective. I know this from experience.

As a leader of a recruiting firm, I was controlling, untrusting, and frightened. My behavior nearly cost me everything. Yet through a pivotal experience on a non-profit board, I witnessed something transformative: the power of collaborative leadership and conflict resolution.

We achieved outcomes no single faction could have accomplished alone. By listening to detractors not to convince but to understand, we turned critics into collaborators.

This lesson hit home when one of my employees challenged my boneheaded response to a crisis. Her simpler approach, which I resisted, proved far more effective. In that moment, theory collided with reality, showing me that intellectual understanding alone is never enough.

Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about creating conditions where great ideas thrive and others can step into leadership.

Today, as a keynote speaker and leadership transformation raconteur, I bridge the gap between organizational theory and practical implementation. Through award-winning storytelling as a three-time Moth Story Slam winner and TEDx speaker and evidence-based insights, I help executives navigate disruption by showing how leaders can:

Release the shackles of command-and-control
Access collective wisdom of their teams
Transform culture to thrive in rapid change

The stakes are immense:

77 percent of employees worldwide are disengaged, representing untapped potential
70 percent of digital transformations fail, wasting billions in lost innovation
Traditional leadership models cannot keep pace with AI-driven change, leaving teams struggling to adapt

All of this happens against the backdrop of a world on fire, where crises demand collaboration but we remain divided.

Organizations that embrace Abundant Leadership, where authority is distributed and decisions happen closer to the front lines, can:

Reduce overhead by 40 percent
Ramp up productivity
Drive sustainable innovation amid chaos

When collaboration becomes part of how we work, it spreads to our families, communities, and institutions, and eventually their politics ushering a better world for us all.

If you resonate with these ideas and want to explore how theory can become transformative reality in your organization, I would love to connect. Message me or copy this link to put your date on hold: peterlaughter.com/date-hold/

#LeadershipTransformation #FutureOfWork #OrganizationalChange #Innovation #Leadership #ExecutiveSpeaker

Founder & Talent Pied Piper

For two thirds of us, works sucks. It’s no wonder the world is in such bad shape – most of us spend a huge part of our waking lives doing something we barely tolerate. It doesn’t need to be this way. After 25 years in recruitment, I have an uncommon understanding of the psychology of hiring. What’s more, I know that your future is not dictated by your past. I love opening up joyous opportunities for people’s careers and helping them transition from a place of purpose and deep understanding.

WVE - Business Technology Strategy

WVE - Business Technology Strategy is a Global collaboration between Distinguished Architects focused on helping organizations gain a digital advantage through value-driven architecture. 

We help craft innovative solutions that merge architectural principles with modern technology.

Chief Architect - 

Ascendient Strategy

•	Advise Fortune 100 CEOs and senior executives on how optimal technical strategy, development, operations, products, and services can enable their business goals.
•	Counsel enterprise CIOs on realizing the best value ROI from their ~$50M+ annual IT and digital transformation budget.
•	Leverage past leadership of AWS’s Cloud Adoption Framework, X.509 standards, Microsoft's Mission Critical Reference Architecture, and Dynamic Compute Reference Architecture to roadmap large-scale solutions and solve complex problems that will constrain or stop the execution of multibillion-dollar existential, mission-critical programs. 
•	Guide large-scale cloud computing and software implementations, including managing requirements, functional analysis, coding design, testing, deployment, maintenance, improvements, technical writing, and other SDLC leadership.
•	Collaborate with NetApp’s Chief Security Officer and CEO of Zilla Security to increase awareness of cloud framework threats.

Founder and Principal Strategist

Sh*t I Learned The Hard Way

I am the host of an weekly video podcast called "Sh*t I Learned The Hard Way, " the show about lessons hard-learned and wisdom hard-gained. I am always looking for storytellers to be my guest. If you have a great story to tell about a lesson hard-learned or wisdom hard-gained, please get in touch and tell your story! All inquiries to silthw@hey.com

Podcast Host

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

•	Oversaw design, awareness, and industry acceptance of the first AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) that helped enterprises to digitally transform and accelerate business value realization via a people-first view of technology adoption.
•	Enabled enterprise-wide cloud readiness by creating a holistic impact from six perspectives: business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. Developed methods for AWS CAF: Envision, Align, Launch, and Scale. 
•	Expanded AWS penetration by traveling globally to speak at conferences and advising CIOs and IT executives.
•	As of 2023, millions of organizations—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—use the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework to lower costs, increase agility, and innovate faster.

Author and Evangelist - AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

Microsoft

•	Built public sector services products for U.S federal, state, and local agencies, legislative branches, and education and health care outside the U.S. Program, including comprehensive, balanced components representing all Microsoft products.
•	Drove public sector professional services revenue growth from $800M to $1.7B over five years by standardizing offers, rapid solution creation, and efficient delivery of complex global services by improving architectural process and governance.
•	Recruited, trained, evaluated, and developed 22 business architects, operational leaders, and analysts.

Senior Director, Public Sector Service Delivery

•	Led strategy, new solution development, existing service delivery, consulting, support, and 42 staff as the SPOC for services. 
•	Led turnaround of underperforming White House & State accounts via decisive, fast upgrades to people, process, products.
•	Increased consulting and support services revenue to $12M+ in 14 months.

Senior Manager, Customer Success, Dept of State & EOP

•	Within the Office of the CTO (OCTO), managed the incubation of global mission critical business, the global dynamic compute business, and the global enterprise strategy and architecture by leading planning, product management, advisory services, consulting delivery, and support services.
•	Managed six staff as Chief of Staff for Microsoft’s Enterprise Strategy and Architecture business.
•	Built Microsoft’s Mission Critical Reference Architecture and Built Microsoft’s Dynamic Compute Reference Architecture.

Manager, Global Program Architect

Walt Disney Internet Group

•	Oversaw cybersecurity architecture for all online properties, including 40+ websites (e.g., disney.com, espn.com, abc.com).
•	Reporting to VP, supervised authentication, payment card PCI-DSS standards, COPPA, and other custom compliance rules.
•	Managed project planning, requirements gathering, contracts, schedules, budgets, tasks, process, tracking, quality assurance, risk management, data analysis, metrics, evaluation, problem-solving, communication, reports, and staff.

Senior Manager/Lead Architect, Cybersecurity Architecture

Keyfactor

•	Supervised information assurance architecture for the Navy’s Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft program.
•	Led technology presentations at high-level Navy, Congressional, and NSA reviews.
•	Built and grew specialty security boutique consulting services purchased by several large Fortune 500 customers.

Principal Architect, Office of the CTO

•	Developed strategy, requirements, standards, and feature selection for Certificate Services and Crypto APIs products.
•	Launched and grew adoption of Windows Server 2003 by traveling globally to advise CIOs and present at tech conferences.
•	Worked on multiple IETF standards committees, including contributions to the PKIX working group.

Program Manager, Windows Security

RSA Security

•	Designed and executed highly scalable, resilient authentication and access control hardware for 30+ clients. 
•	Led architecture and delivery of adding cryptography and security to products of startups, OEMs, and device companies to integrate RSA's B-SAFE and Cert-C/J products.

Solution Architect, Cybersecurity

CyberSafe

• CyberSafe created the first commercial implementation of the Kerberos protocol.
• Managed commercial design & delivery of Kerberos protocol as one of few companies with Key Management Infrastructure (KMI) exception allowing cryptography sales to major global finance, bank, telecom, and law enforcement institutions.
• Architected and implemented highly-available, highly-resilient, and highly-scalable authentication infrastructures.

With over 30 years of experience in the tech industry, I am the Founder and Principal Strategist of Ascendient Strategy, a consulting firm that advises Fortune 100 CEOs and senior executives on how to leverage technology as a strategic asset, how to maximize business value from investments, and how to align focus their organizations on enabling their strategic goals. I have a proven track record of creating and implementing large-scale solutions and solving complex problems for global, complex, and privacy-regulated environments across various sectors, such as financial, e-commerce, manufacturing, government, and military.

I am also a CITA-Distinguished Architect, a Mensa Member, and a podcast host of "Sh*t I Learned The Hard Way", a show about lessons hard-learned and wisdom hard-gained in the tech world. I am passionate about sharing my insights and expertise on technology trends, adoption, and value realization with diverse audiences, from CIOs and IT executives to architects and engineers. I am a thought leader and a speaker at conferences and panels, mixing technology best practices with humor and storytelling. My mission is to grow the global realization that technology's value is enabling business success.

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Peter Laughter

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