speaking services
We're passionate about helping all humans feel authentically connected and de-stigmatising loneliness.
Phil - a global loneliness thought-leader and human connection expert - can speak in your workplace, your conference, event or podcast.
Phil shares his own lived experience of loneliness and his insights on the importance of authentic, meaningful connection with your audience.
Let's make that happen for the humans you serve.
Photo: www.photox.com.au
our sample keynote topics
1
Finding and owning our connection needs
Leadership, collaboration, and wellbeing all start with understanding your own connection needs — and having the courage to express them. Phil draws on his personal journey, lived experience, and love of language to help audiences recognise, name, and own their need for meaningful connection. Participants leave equipped to foster authentic connection in both personal and professional contexts.
Participants will:
• Recognise and articulate their own connection needs in personal and professional contexts.
• Build confidence in expressing vulnerability and authenticity with others.
• Understand practical strategies to foster meaningful connection in teams and relationships.
• Learn techniques to hold space for others’ connection needs effectively.
This keynote is ideal for audiences ready to move beyond general awareness and take meaningful action to address psychosocial risks.
2
Our continual search for belonging
All humans seek belonging, yet life stages like midlife and retirement can amplify feelings of disconnection. Phil explores the search for belonging, the challenges of life transitions, and how we can create meaning and authentic relationships in every stage of life. This keynote invites audiences to reflect, reconnect, and take purposeful steps toward a sense of home — within themselves and their communities.
Participants will:
• Explore the human search for belonging and its impact on wellbeing.
• Reflect on life stage challenges, including midlife transitions, and their influence on connection.
• Identify ways to cultivate authentic relationships and community at any stage of life.
• Gain strategies to create meaning and purpose in personal and professional settings.
This keynote is ideal for audiences seeking support and ideas on how to navigate life's transitions - from starting university to preparing for retirement.
3
The loneliness of leadership - and how to stay connected
Leadership can be isolating, yet connection is critical for sustainable leadership and team wellbeing. Phil examines the often-unspoken experience of loneliness among leaders and provides evidence-based strategies to stay connected — to purpose, peers, and the people we lead. Participants gain actionable tools to foster trust, openness, and meaningful connection in high-pressure environments.
Participants will:
• Understand the psychological and organisational factors that contribute to loneliness in leadership.
• Recognise the personal and cultural impacts of disconnection at senior levels.
• Learn evidence-based strategies to maintain connection, wellbeing, and empathy as a leader.
• Gain tools to foster trust, openness, and meaningful connection within their teams and networks.
This keynote is for audiences of leaders - current and aspiring - wanting advice on how to navigate loneliness and harness the power of meaningful connection within themselves and those they lead.
4
Solving the global loneliness epidemic:
perspectives from lived experience
Loneliness is a growing global challenge, with implications for mental health, workplaces, and society. Phil combines lived experience, research, and policy insights to explore the epidemic of loneliness and share five practical strategies for addressing it. Audiences leave with a grounded understanding of loneliness and actionable ways to strengthen human connection at both individual and systemic levels.
Participants will:
• Understand the scale and complexity of loneliness in modern society.
• Explore the intersection of policy, research, and lived experience in addressing loneliness.
• Learn five actionable strategies to reduce loneliness in workplaces and communities.
• Develop practical approaches to strengthen connection at both individual and systemic levels.
This is for audiences wanting a more general discussion of loneliness and social connection with empowering suggestions of how they can help solve the loneliness epidemic.
5
As AI really our future?
Technology is reshaping how we work, connect, and understand the world. In this keynote, Phil explores the intersection of humanity and technology — asking what we risk leaving behind in our race toward automation. This session isn’t about data, code or regulations; it’s about meaning, belonging, and the human experience. Participants are invited to reflect on how to partner with technology while keeping what makes us human front and centre.
Participants will:
• Explore the impact of technology and AI on human connection, work, community, and our need for meaning.
• Reflect on what we risk losing - and gain - as automation reshapes our world.
• Identify strategies to partner with technology while preserving human values.
• Consider ways to maintain empathy, purpose, and belonging in a rapidly changing future.
This is for audiences wanting to understand the impacts of AI on households, workplaces and communities. Audiences will feel empowered to develop human-centred responses to AI disruption.
These topics offer a glimpse into what’s possible.
Phil welcomes the opportunity to shape a talk around your unique needs and ideas - simply share your thoughts during your first conversation.
With insight, empathy, and an unparalleled depth of life experience, Phil partners with you to craft something that truly serves, supports, challenges and inspires your audience.
You need our expertise
Phil McAuliffe is a global expert on human connection and social health. As an articulate, engaging, and approachable speaker, he brings these essential yet often overlooked - or avoided - aspects of our wellbeing to the forefront - making the topic relevant and inspiring for every audience.
Phil’s keynotes and talks shift the conversation from abstract concepts to lived experiences, helping audiences understand the vital role connection plays in our lives and how it impacts our overall health and happiness.
With an academic background in public policy, community development, and international relations, Phil served as an Australian Public Servant and diplomat for 23 years. In demanding environments where success was expected at all costs, he developed a deep understanding of how social health influences performance, wellbeing, and resilience.
Phil recognises how challenging it can be to nurture authentic relationships in today’s fast-paced world. He views social health as a fundamental human need, one that - when prioritised - can transform how we live, work, and thrive.
Through his work, Phil offers practical insights, fresh perspectives, and meaningful strategies to help individuals and organisations cultivate stronger connections and foster healthier communities.
Photo: Michael White Photography
We're different
And proudly so.
Loneliness is a topic that we often avoid. The stigma is simply too strong.
Loneliness doesn't go away just because we don't like it and it makes us feel uncomfortable.
When it is discussed, it's done in dry, abstract terms. Statistics, academic reports, and theories don’t capture the lived experience of isolation and disconnection.
Tackling the global challenge of loneliness means embracing the deeper human needs for social health, belonging, and authentic connection. That’s where Phil’s voice is vital—sharing wisdom that reaches the hearts, minds, and souls of real people.
Phil’s keynotes and talks bring humanity and warmth to these conversations. Drawing from his own experience with loneliness, he helps audiences - including professionals, parents, LGBTIQA+ communities and students - recognise and own their need for connection and belonging.
It takes courage for Phil to share his personal journey, but he does so to ignite the honest, compassionate and real conversations he wished he’d heard when he felt alone.
Hundreds of thousands around the world have been moved by Phil’s story and inspired through his facilitation of kind, meaningful dialogue about loneliness, social health, and building genuine belonging.
Through this work, people feel more connected—to themselves, to others, and to the wider world.
Your audience will remember our unique insights into human connection, social health and loneliness.
They'll feel empowered and want to feel more connected.
IMPORTANT
MESSAGES
HUMANS:CONNECTING believes in the power of human connection. That begins with how we work.
Speaking services are offered as paid services, reflecting years of lived and professional experience, the preparation for the event, and the impact our words will have on your audience. These services fuel the positive social impact we’re here to make and delivers lasting value to your audience.
A limited number of pro bono talks are available each year where there is a strong values alignment and a clear, detailed communication plan to amplify the message beyond the room.
While keynotes, presentations and talks are paid services, Phil is glad to appear on podcasts where there’s shared purpose and space for meaningful dialogue without charge.
Fees are discussed during our initial call and are not published due to commercial confidentiality.
Book your call using the form below and we'd love to hear more about your event or podcast in our initial conversation.
SPEAKING EVENTS
June 2025
At a TEDxCanberra event on Tuesday 17 June 2025, Phil stood before the audience and asked a powerful question:
“Why do we stigmatise loneliness?”
He explained that just as hunger and thirst evolved to drive us to eat and drink - ensuring our survival - loneliness evolved to push us toward connection, which is just as vital to our wellbeing. Yet, unlike hunger or thirst, loneliness is often met with silence and shame.
Phil highlighted the danger of this silence: when no one talks about loneliness, we feel even more isolated when we inevitably experience it. The stigma keeps us quiet, and that quiet is deeply harmful.
He urged the audience to be a place of connection for others - reminding them that even if they weren’t experiencing loneliness themselves, statistically, someone nearby likely was.
Offering connection, he said, is one of the simplest and most powerful kindnesses we can give.
previous speaking events
our work in the media
