Tamsen Webster, Keynote Address

Tamsen Webster has spent the last twenty years helping leaders generate lasting change from their ideas. Part message designer, part storyteller, part English-to-English translator, her work focuses on how to find and build the stories partners, investors, clients, and customers will tell themselves-and others. In 2024, she founded the Message Design Institute, the culmination of 25+ years of science-backed research and real-world application.

Tamsen's own Red Thread is woven through more than 20 years as a brand and message strategist. She holds an MBA in Management Communications and Organizational Behavior, an MA in Arts Administration (Public Relations and Crisis Communications) and bachelor's degrees in American Studies and Marketing.

Tamsen honed her expertise through work in and for major companies and organizations like Johnson & Johnson, Harvard Medical School, and Intel, as well as with startups that represent the next wave of innovation in life science, biotech, climate tech, fintech, and pharma. She's a professional advisor at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and a mentor for the Harvard Innovation Labs. She's also served as executive producer for almost 10 years and idea strategist for one of the oldest independently organized TED Talk events in the world (TEDxCambridge). Most recently, Tamsen was named to the Thinkers50 Radar thinkers to watch class of 2022. She published her first book, Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible, in 2021.

She was a reluctant marathoner... twice, is a champion ballroom dancer (in her mind), and learned everything she knows about messages, people, and change as a Weight Watchers leader. True story.