Speaking
Who leaves first, and how to see it coming
Keynotes, workshops and fireside conversations for leadership teams that want to get the environment right: systems that hold after the champion leaves, and keep the people they need most.
Peter Allen Mann is a former Navy Surface Warfare Officer, a Fortune 100 director at Dell and Tech Data, and founder and CEO of Oransi, a U.S. air-purification and motor-technology manufacturer. He chairs AHAM's Air Cleaners Council and is the author of two Fast Company Press books: The Perception Revolution and The Projection Fallacy, out April 2027.
Trained in statistics and industrial engineering, and a lifelong student of why people do what they do, he brings 37 years of running teams across military, Fortune 100 and entrepreneurial settings, with retention near 95% across them, to questions of leadership, retention and neurodiversity at work. Diagnosed autistic at 55, he knows the pattern from both sides. He has weighed whether speaking up was worth the risk, gone quiet and left, and he has sat in the CEO's chair, where that silence is easy to miss. He treats neurodivergent talent as a structural design problem rather than an accommodation problem.
On stage
See Peter in conversation
Two recent interviews: why sameness is a weak basis for culture fit, and the argument behind The Perception Revolution.
Let Go of Sameness as Culture Fit: Why It Isn’t a Strength. Let Go & Lead with Maril MacDonald, July 2026.
Author Peter Allen Mann on Worker Neurodivergence and his Book, The Perception Revolution. James Felton Keith and InclusionScore.
Speaking topics
Two signature talks
The same finding for two rooms: the leadership team that owns the systems, and the managers who work inside them.
The Perception Revolution: building organizations that don't lose their most innovative people
Every organization has a group that leaves faster than the rest, and it is usually the people who see problems first. Before they leave, they go quiet. Before they go quiet, they run a calculation: is raising this worth what it could cost me? Leadership sees only the silence, and most teams have never priced the gap it leaves. The ones that care about it face a harder question.
How do you make it work without depending on every manager getting it right?
This talk shows how to measure the gap from data you already hold, why five systems you run (hiring, meetings, priorities, reviews and promotion) decide who stays, and which ones to change first. Most of those systems are implicit. They run on rules their designers never wrote down, because the designers assumed everyone reads situations the way they do. Peter calls that assumption the Projection Fallacy, and making the systems explicit is the fix that holds. Drawn from 37 years in leadership positions across the Navy, two Fortune 100 companies and two companies he founded.
Your audience leaves with
- How to price the turnover gap in their own organization
- How to tell the person who was right first from the one who is simply difficult, using the record instead of the label
- Why the people who flag problems early are the ones who leave, and who the same systems promote in their place
- Which systems to change first so the fix holds after the champion moves on
Best for: C-suite, boards, HR leadership, and manufacturing, technology and healthcare leadership teams.
Who Leaves First, and How to Keep Them: what managers can change inside systems they didn't design
On most teams, the people who spot problems early are the first to go, and the manager is the last to know. Friction that looks like one person's attitude usually comes from how the work is set up: unclear criteria, meetings that reward the fastest talker, decisions no one wrote down. The generation entering the workforce now feels this most, because it works best when expectations are explicit.
Managers should not have to get this right by instinct.
This talk gives them the part of the fix they control, with no budget and no permission required.
Your audience leaves with
- The early signs that a good employee is quietly on the way out
- Four practices any manager can start this week: agendas sent ahead, written expectations, decisions recorded with the reasoning, and the same questions for everyone in reviews and interviews
- A free check to run with their own team, and again in ninety days
- Four questions that tell a blunt, early-right employee from a corrosive one
Best for: Management training and leadership development programs, HR and SHRM chapter conferences, nurse leader conferences, plant and operations manager meetings.
Also available
Universal design for cognition: building for the people who process differently
The changes that help neurodivergent and highly perceptive employees most (clear criteria, written context, predictable meetings) turn out to work better for almost everyone.
Best for: Neurodiversity-at-work conferences, association leadership, HR and inclusion leaders.
From the Combat Information Center to the C-suite: why explicit systems hold under pressure
Three operational moments: a Red Sea deployment, a Fortune 100 turnaround, and an autism diagnosis at fifty-five. Each shows why leadership built on explicit systems holds when the pressure is on.
Best for: Executive retreats, veteran-business audiences, founder communities.
Rooms I speak to: leadership teams, managers and supervisors, HR and people leaders, and founder and CEO communities, most often in manufacturing, technology and healthcare.
Formats
Built for different rooms
Keynote
45–60 minutes. Framework-driven, with operational case studies.
Keynote plus working session
The talk for the full audience, then a half-day session with the organization's leaders the same day or the next, working on their own systems.
Fireside chat
30–45 minutes. Conversational, suited to executive retreats and conference plenaries.
Workshop
Half-day or full-day. The SHIELD framework applied to a specific organizational context.
Panel
Participation on neurodiversity, retention and leadership-under-pressure topics.
Virtual and hybrid
Broadcast-quality audio and video. Works for any of the formats above.
Coverage and credentials
The platform behind the talks
In the press
- Chief Executive, “An Autism Diagnosis at 55 Reframed This CEO’s Entire Life”, book excerpt from The Perception Revolution, and a 2025 profile on rebuilding U.S. manufacturing
- IndustryWeek, “Driving Innovation Through Autism Awareness in Recruiting” (2023)
- Inc., on building a U.S. manufacturer for an export market
- Bloomberg Businessweek, founder profile
- CNN Business, on U.S.-made products for the China market
- American Express segment on the How I Built This podcast
- 30+ podcast interviews, including Let Go & Lead, InclusionScore with James Felton Keith, Mental Health at Work (Oliva), Neurodiverging, The Manufacturer's Network, 20 Minute Leaders and Authority Magazine
Full press kit: bios, story angles and downloads →
Credentials
- Endorsed by Temple Grandin, for The Perception Revolution
- Two-book deal with Fast Company Press — The Perception Revolution, and The Projection Fallacy in April 2027
- Speaker, Manufacturing Leaders Summit
- Co-author on research into neurodivergent employees' workplace communication, with collaborators at the University of Rochester's Simon Business School and Bowling Green State University, including a paper accepted for presentation at HICSS, January 2027.
- Chair, AHAM Air Cleaners Council
- Guest Lecturer, University of Rochester, Simon Business School
Speaking reel.
For event organizers
Include the book in your event
Conferences, associations and corporate clients booking Peter to speak can bundle the book with the engagement. Options include a copy of The Perception Revolution for every attendee, a SHIELD discussion guide for the cohort, and a virtual follow-up session in the ninety days after the event.
Bulk-order pricing through Porchlight Books at 25 copies and above.
Email bulk@shieldperception.com for event-bundle pricing and logistics.
How to book
Tell me about the room
Send the date, the audience, the format, and one sentence on what you want people walking out with. I answer within two business days.
Speaking inquiries
Speaking fees are available on request and vary by format, audience size, geography and organization type. Discounts for nonprofits, educational institutions and association events.
Want the work inside your own organization instead of a talk? That is the leadership team engagement, which I take on with a small number of leadership teams each year, measuring differential turnover and signal loss, then measuring again: signal loss at ninety days, turnover at six and twelve months. A shorter Turnover Gap Diagnostic is the usual first step.
More on the background: Peter Mann.