She doesn't give keynotes. She gives clarity.
Joanna Sherrow speaks to founders, leaders, and high-performers who are tired of the wrong diagnosis. Her talks aren't motivational they're structural. Audiences leave knowing exactly what's broken in their business, and what to build to fix it.
In person and online · New dates added regularly
Four ways to bring Joanna to your audience.
Keynote & Main Stage
The flagship diagnosis, built for a full room of founders and operators. 45–60 min.
Breakout & Workshop
Hands-on and practical. The framework applied live to the audience's business. 45–90 min.
Mastermind & Peer Group
Intimate, direct, and specific. Best for CEO roundtables and peer advisory boards. 30–60 min.
Podcast & Media
A sharp, quotable conversation on systems, scaling, and founder dependency.
Five talks. One through line: what got you here won't get you there.
Every talk starts from the same observation growth doesn't stall because the leader lacks ambition. It stalls because the business, and sometimes the leader, hasn't evolved to support the next level. The audience changes. The reframe doesn't.
Closing the Growth Gap™: What Got You Here Won't Get You There
Joanna challenges audiences to look past revenue and name the hidden gaps between where they are, where they want to go, and what the business actually requires to get there. Through the D.A.B.A.O.™ Framework, they learn to move from reacting to problems to intentionally building for growth.
- —Why working harder eventually stops producing better results
- —How to identify the real gap holding back growth
- —Why people, processes, systems, and leadership must evolve together
- —How to stop building around today's problems and start building for tomorrow's business
Lead the Business You Want to Build
You cannot build a next-level business while leading it exactly as you do today. As companies grow, the CEO's job has to change from doing to deciding, from controlling to developing, from being needed everywhere to building people who can lead without them.
- —How leadership changes as the business grows
- —Why being needed can become one of a CEO's biggest liabilities
- —How to create ownership instead of dependency
- —Why the next level requires the right WHO, not simply more HOW
- —How Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, and Habits KASH shape the leader you become
Dear CEO: You're Amazing. You're Also the Bottleneck.
The qualities that helped you start the business can become the very things preventing it from scaling. You solve problems, you move fast, you know how it should be done and eventually everything comes back to you. Joanna helps founders see when hustle has turned into founder dependency, and what has to change.
- —How founder dependency develops without you realizing it
- —The difference between being valuable and being required
- —Why delegation without infrastructure fails
- —How to build a company where decisions, execution, and ownership don't end with the CEO
Your Vision Is Bigger Than Your Infrastructure
Big vision is exciting but vision without infrastructure creates chaos. As businesses grow, they add more marketing, people, software, and ideas without fixing the architecture connecting them. Joanna shows leaders how to build the operational spine that turns vision into repeatable execution.
- —Why more leads won't fix a broken business
- —How marketing, sales, operations, technology, and people must connect
- —Where growth starts breaking as organizations scale
- —How to build systems without creating unnecessary complexity
- —Why the best system supports people instead of replacing them
Small Team. Giant Leverage. How AI, Automation & Human Leadership Are Changing Small Business
For the first time, small businesses can reach capabilities once reserved for companies with enormous teams and budgets. But technology alone isn't the advantage knowing what should and shouldn't be automated is. A practical, optimistic look at building leverage while protecting the relationships that actually drive the business.
- —How lean organizations can operate with significantly greater leverage
- —What AI should automate and where humans still matter most
- —Why technology amplifies good systems but exposes broken ones
- —How to prepare your business for the next generation of work
- —Why the future belongs to businesses that combine technology with intentional leadership
Bring Joanna to your stage.
One speaker. Five talks. A framework audiences can use the same week. If your room is full of founders and operators running real businesses, this is the talk that changes how they lead next.
Speaking fees may apply based on format, audience, and scope. Travel and accommodation are handled per the engagement. Details confirmed in the speaker kit.
Watch Joanna in action.
A short look at how Joanna delivers the framework live. Click to play and see why audiences leave with a working map, not just notes.
Moments from live events.
Whether keynoting main stages, leading hands-on workshops, or participating on founder panels, Joanna delivers actionable clarity in every room.
Small Business Training & Implementation Lab — Hands-On Systems & Tech
Women's Conference — Branding, Systems & Sustainable Scale Keynote
Mastermind & Workshop — Live Training & Strategy Session with Founders
Live Industry Panel — Main Stage Panelist & Strategy Discussion
Audience Engagement — Post-Talk Huddle & Strategy Q&A
Live Event — Community, Founders & Attendees
Workshop — Crafting Client Journeys with Technology
Panel Discussion — Strong Women Strong Coffee Event
Live Training — Canva & Systems Session for 100+ Founders
Live Keynote Presentation — Delivering the D.A.B.A.O. Framework
Fireside Chat — Live Q&A at Industry Event
Live Session — Canva World Tour & Community Labs
Her talks land hardest when half the room is running a real business.
Resonates most: founder-led business conferences, high-performance coaching programs and masterminds (Coach Burt network, CEO roundtables), sales organizations, industry conferences for coaches and consultants, and women's entrepreneurship stages.
Not the right fit: early-stage startup events still finding product-market fit, corporate leadership inside large enterprises, or general motivational programs. The diagnosis requires a business that's already running.
The work doesn't stop when the talk ends.
High-level conversations happen right in the hallways, breakouts, and after-session huddles. Joanna stays to answer specific bottleneck questions, unpack frameworks, and connect directly with founders navigating real-time operational shifts.
LIVE HUDDLES & Q&A
Post-session huddle with founders and leaders diving into their specific growth bottlenecks.
MAIN STAGE PANEL
Sharing perspectives on scale, systems, and modern business architecture before hundreds of founders and operators.
Sharp, candid dialogue on the main stage.
Whether joining an executive panel, fireside chat, or industry debate, Joanna cuts through surface-level talking points with actionable insight on scaling, operational bottlenecks, and founder leadership.
Voice AI Intro for the Wedding Industry
In high-touch, relationship-driven markets like the wedding and events industry, responsiveness is everything. Joanna introduces owners and venue operators to Voice AI: how automated, natural-sounding voice assistants capture inquiries instantly, qualify couples 24/7, and book consultations while protecting the warm, elevated standard of the brand.
WORKSHOP & MASTERCLASS
Hands-on industry training and interactive working sessions with business owners and leaders.
WOMEN'S BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP CONFERENCES
Keynotes, masterclasses, and working sessions empowering women entrepreneurs to build scalable brand authority and durable systems.
Branding, Systems & Sustainable Growth for Women Founders
Women's leadership summits and founder conferences don't need another lecture on hustle or work-life balance — they need actionable business architecture. Joanna speaks directly to women business owners ready to elevate their brand authority, eliminate founder dependency, and build marketing and revenue systems that scale without burning out.
Hands-On Small Business Training & Implementation Labs
Not just presentations — working sessions with laptops open. Joanna leads interactive small-business masterclasses, chamber workshops, and implementation labs where local business owners, contractors, and founders work on their live tools, build repeatable workflows, and learn modern tech systems in real time.
SMALL BUSINESS TRAINING LAB
Classroom-style working sessions guiding entrepreneurs through real-time tools, workflows, and actionable systems.
Find a session on the calendar.
Every event is built to be used, not just heard. Pick a date that works and bring the framework back to your business the same week.
Topics and formats vary. The standard doesn't.
Everything we teach comes from the DABAO Framework in the book Closing the Growth Gap and from the work we do inside client businesses every week. Some sessions are hands-on workshops, some are online trainings, some are talks for a group or association but every one is built to be used, not just heard.
Workshops
Hands-on working sessions where you apply the frameworks to your own business from the flagship half-day Growth Gap Workshop to shorter focused sessions.
Live online sessions
Trainings and working sessions you can join from anywhere, each on a single topic. Registrants get the recording.
Speaking & guest sessions
Talks and trainings for associations, chambers, teams, and advisor groups, in person or online, sized to your room and your audience.
Not theory. A working map.
Every session is built around the same diagnostic we run inside client businesses. You'll leave with a clearer picture of where your momentum is leaking and the next step to close it.
Where attention turns into revenue and where it leaks out before it does.
The five steps of the DABAO Framework and how they apply to your business today.
The systems that let the business run without the founder in every seat.
A next step you can take the same week, not someday.
Can't make a date? Run the scan yourself.
The free Gap Scan is the first block of every workshop, available online any time. Ten minutes, and you'll know where your business is leaking momentum and whether a session is worth your morning.
Or bring Joanna to your stage — email hello@growthgapco.com about a booking.