The best magic and the best behavioural science share a secret. Both are the study of attention, perception and influence. David Linacre brings the two together in a keynote unlike anything your audience has seen.
Part talk, part live demonstration, David combines real behavioural science with mentalism performed in the room, showing your audience how influence and persuasion actually work, by doing it to them in real time.
David is not a speaker who has studied the professional world from the outside. He has spent nearly twenty years inside it, in client development and business growth positions at two of the world’s largest law firms, winning work and shaping decisions at the highest sector level.
Client Development at the UK's largest law firms
Featured on the BBC
David’s signature keynote is about how influence actually works – not manipulation, but design. If you need to persuade people, win buy-in or shape a decision, this keynote shows you how to guide outcomes so the right choice starts to feel obvious. It works for professionals at any level and lands particularly well with those working in professional services, retail and any sector where winning stakeholder agreement is part of the job.
Backed by real behavioural science and brought to life through live mentalism the audience experiences firsthand, it uncovers four hidden mechanisms at work in every organisation:
How what you make salient guides decisions before a single argument is made.
The mental shortcuts behind high-stakes choices, from anchoring to authority bias and loss aversion, and how to work with them.
How systems, constraints and visible accountability turn organisational chaos into coherence.
How the right structures and language channel thinking and make complex choices manageable.
The central idea is simple but bold: real influence isn’t coercion, it’s design. Each principle gets demonstrated live, so the audience doesn’t just hear how influence works – they feel it happen to them in real time, then see exactly how it maps back to the decisions they’re making and the people they’re trying to persuade every day.
The keynote is designed for conferences, away days, sales kick-offs, awards dinners and after-dinner slots, and works for any audience whose success depends on persuading others and guiding decisions. It lands with particular force in professional-services, legal, sales-led and commercial organisations, but the principles are universal: from partners and senior leadership to sales and business-development teams, client-facing professionals and rising talent, influence and persuasion are daily currency in every one of those rooms. David tailors the emphasis to your audience, whether that is a leadership offsite, a full-firm conference or a sales team away day. Whether opening a conference or closing a formal dinner, it leaves a room energised, talking, and seeing their own decisions a little differently.
What sets David apart from other keynote performers is that he has lived in his audience’s world. Alongside his magic career, he has spent nearly two decades in client development and business-growth roles at two of the world’s largest law firms, winning work, building relationships and shaping decisions at the highest level. It is a career built on the very thing the keynote is about: persuading people and guiding outcomes. That grounding gives him a genuine insider’s feel for professional-services and legal audiences, but the dynamics he reveals are universal. The same mechanisms play out in every sales conversation, every pitch, every negotiation and every boardroom. So when David shows how influence really works, he is illuminating something his audience does every day, as someone who has spent his own career doing it too.
As a member of The Magic Circle with over 25 years performing as a magician and corporate mentalist, including for a number of FTSE 100 businesses, and a BBC feature, David brings a rare combination of credibility, polish and genuine surprise to the stage. His two careers are more connected than they first appear: in both business development and mentalism, success comes from influencing outcomes in a way no one quite notices. This is not entertainment bolted onto a talk. It is a single, seamless experience built around your event.
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Alongside over 25 years as a professional magician and member of The Magic Circle, David has spent nearly twenty years in client development and business growth within the legal sector, at two of the world’s largest law firms. He brings a genuine insider’s understanding of corporate and professional audiences to every keynote.
Tailored to your event, from a focused keynote to an after-dinner slot. Get in touch to discuss format.
The ideas are demonstrated live through mentalism, so the audience experiences influence and persuasion first-hand rather than only hearing about them.
Design the conditions, and the right decisions will follow.
share a few details and David will be in touch to talk through your audience and objectives.
