Invite Dr. Terry Wu to Speak

Your audience has sat through enough keynotes built on inflated anecdotes and fast-fading enthusiasm. Dr. Wu delivers something they’re not used to hearing: the neuroscience of why people follow leaders — translated into language anyone can understand and tools they can apply immediately.

He’s not a motivational speaker. He’s a neuroscientist who makes brain science accessible, relatable, and directly useful for leaders at every level. Your attendees won’t just enjoy the session — they’ll gain a new lens on the drivers of engagement, retention, and sound decision-making in their organizations. Best of all, they’ll still be applying what they learned months or years later.

Dr. Wu has been invited back by multiple organizations, including the National Park Services, which has been inviting him to present annually for five years.

Organizations return to Dr. Wu because his content sticks — attendees reference his tools long after the event. Rebooking is the truest measure of a speaker: organizations only bring someone back when the first session produced something real. Dr. Wu gets brought back.

What Happens When Dr. Wu Presents

At the 2025 SHRM National Conference, 2,100+ HR leaders attended Dr. Wu’s presentation. In written comments, several attendees called it the best of the conference’s 400+ sessions.

• 91% rated his session Excellent (66%) or Very Good (25%).
• 91% found his content Excellent (75%) or Very Good (16%).
• 87% rated his presentation skills Excellent (65%) or Very Good (22%).

Read the survey results and 31 attendees’ comments.

Select attendee comments:

• “Best session of the conference. He had a perfect pace, great info, & kept the entire room engaged the whole time (seriously like almost no one left the room). He was amazing.”
• “I enjoyed this session so much. Terry was wildly brilliant and balanced the presentation perfectly with humor.”
• “Great! Easy to understand the science behind it. Gave good tools to understanding stress as related to burnout. Good tools to manage stress in everyday life and at work.”

Watch the 3-minute testimonial for Dr. Wu’s presentation on the Science of Belonging and Us vs. Them.

What Your Audience Will Learn

Dr. Wu’s presentations reveal the neuroscience behind why people follow — the missing piece in leadership training. Each topic is available as a keynote (60–90 minutes) or an interactive workshop (half-day or full-day).

• Transform Leadership, Beat Burnout with Neuroscience ~ Poor leadership creates chronic stress. Chronic stress sabotages leadership. Your audience will learn how this cycle works at the neurological level and — more importantly — how to break it. The organizations that fix this at the source — rather than asking employees to cope — are the ones that hold onto their best people.
• Make Better Decisions Under Pressure with Neuroscience ~ Leaders don’t make bad decisions because they lack data. They make bad decisions because their emotions hijack the process before the data gets a vote. Your audience will learn how emotions shape decisions at the neural level and how to make better calls when the pressure is highest — and the confidence to stand behind those calls instead of second-guessing them.
• Shift from Us vs. Them to Belonging with Neuroscience ~ Belonging isn’t a feel-good concept. It’s a biological safety signal that drives cooperation, performance, and retention. It’s also fragile — and most leaders don’t realize how quickly their own behavior can destroy it. Your audience will learn what triggers belonging, what kills it, and what to do about both — so teams collaborate across the lines that usually divide them.

From the First Call to Your Audience Wanting More

Booking a speaker shouldn’t be complicated. Here’s how working with Dr. Wu goes — from your first call to attendees who are still talking about the session months and years later.

• Step 1: Tell us about your event ~ Who’s your audience? What’s the format? What challenges are your leaders facing? A 15-minute call is usually all it takes to figure out the right fit.
• Step 2: Dr. Wu customizes the content ~ No two audiences get the same presentation. Dr. Wu tailors the science, examples, and tools to your industry and your audience’s experience level — whether that’s 10 executives in a boardroom or 2,000 HR professionals at a national conference.
• Step 3: Your audience gets the science ~ Dr. Wu delivers. Your attendees leave with a new understanding of how the brain drives leadership behavior — and specific tools they’ll use.
• Step 4: The conversation keeps going ~ Attendees get access to follow-up resources so the learning doesn’t end when the session does.

About Dr. Terry Wu

Ph.D. in neuroscience, studying learning and memory, Vanderbilt University. Nearly four decades of experience in brain science, including 20 years working in the neuroscience department at the University of Minnesota. 20+ years as a business owner. Not a theorist — a scientist who has built companies and understands what leaders face. Which is why his content doesn’t stay abstract: it connects real science to the real problems your leaders are dealing with right now.

• TEDx Talk: 690,000+ views
• Big Think Program: 1.2M+ views
• Featured on CNBC
• Op-eds in the Minnesota Star Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle

Terry’s 3-hour workshop flew by with practical, actionable ways to understand and combat the stress we experience in all aspects of life. His framework is brilliantly simple, which makes it something I know my members and I will actually use. During our afternoon issue processing, multiple people referred back to the session in terms of connecting their stressors and responses to the issues at hand. Terry is obviously an extremely intelligent person, and he communicates with the audience in such a relatable manner. While his research is scientific and data-based, he speaks from the heart and connects to the audience easily. For me, I find it important that our members are presented with high-quality speakers who give them more than what they are accustomed to from traditional leadership presentations (the feel-good, be passionate, overcome type of things). Terry was able to connect the intangible nature of stress to how we can be better leaders, partners, parents, friends… ~ Melissa Bloom, Peoria, Illinois, Vistage Chair and President, Expanse Strategists

• Call: (952) 270-2694 ~ Get Your Answers Now
• Email: Terry@WhyTheBrainFollows.com ~ Receive a response within 24 hours