Speaking
When failure repeats, it is rarely because people did not know better. It repeats because learning broke down under pressure and never changed how decisions were made.
Mike Ciannilli delivers a keynote that equips leaders to prevent repeat failure before consequences appear. Drawing on 30 years inside the U.S. space program, including direct responsibility as a NASA Test Director, Mike shows how lessons fade, risks go quiet, and reasonable decisions lead to unacceptable outcomes.
This keynote gives leaders a practical way to stop that cycle.
Preventing Failure: Lessons Learned to Lessons Applied
Mike’s keynote is structured as a disciplined countdown that mirrors how Test Directors think and operate inside high-consequence systems.
Through powerful storytelling, humor, and real operational lessons, audiences experience a clear progression from explanation to prevention.
Identify Risk Early
Leaders learn how small signals get dismissed, how normalization of deviance begins, and how to recognize risk before it becomes operational exposure.
Align on What Happened and Why
Teams examine not only how events unfolded but why decisions made sense at the time, replacing hindsight with clarity.
Apply Lessons to Decisions
Learning moves beyond reports and into real operational ownership, decision rights, and behavioral change.
Challenge Drift and Assumptions
Leaders recognize false confidence, question assumptions, and strengthen communication under pressure.
Commit to Prevention Discipline
Organizations leave with a practical framework for maintaining vigilance as urgency and complexity return.
This structure creates a keynote experience that is engaging, grounded, and operationally relevant.
What Audiences Leave With
Organizations consistently report:
Earlier Identification
Earlier identification of risk and weak signals
Operational Discipline
Stronger operational discipline under pressure
Fewer Repeat Failures
Fewer repeat failures and near-misses
Clearer Communication
Clearer communication across roles and silos
Explicit Ownership
Explicit ownership of lessons learned
Why Organizations Book Mike
Mike speaks from responsibility, not hindsight.
He spent 30 years inside the U.S. space program training launch leaders, briefing astronauts, orchestrating Space Shuttle launches, and helping recover Columbia and her crew. He later created and led NASA’s Apollo, Challenger, Columbia Lessons Learned Program, ensuring hard-earned lessons were applied across the agency.
His work resonates with executive audiences because it combines:
- Real operational credibility
- Deeply human storytelling
- Warmth, humor, and authenticity
- Lessons designed for environments where getting it wrong is not an option
Where This Keynote Fits
This program is especially effective for:
- Leadership and executive retreats
- Safety, risk, and quality conferences
- Operations, engineering, and reliability summits
- Healthcare, energy, manufacturing, aviation, transportation, defense, finance, and technology organizations
- Board and enterprise risk meetings
- Post-incident or post-project learning sessions
- Organizations navigating growth, change, or sustained pressure
Failure is inevitable in complex systems.
Preventing repeat failure is a leadership discipline.
Bring Mike Ciannilli to Your Organization
See What Others Are Saying
Trusted leaders from NASA, global corporations, and media organizations turn to Mike when the message truly matters—and their words say it best.
See more speaking testimonialsFlagship Conference Keynote that Exceeded Expectations
Excellent Speech at our recent Public Area Security session, at the Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) Public Safety and Security Conference. Beyond any and all expectations!
Senior VP, Security, Airports Council InternationalOutstanding Leadership Presentation on Safety
Outstanding Presentation! You have given so many invaluable things for me and my senior leadership team to think about…and most importantly, to act on.
Safety Executive, Walt Disney WorldPowerful All-Hands Speech to 1,000+ Employees
Thank You again for such a powerful and memorable speech. Looks like we had over 1000 employees attend. Glad we rented out the entire Melbourne Auditorium just for your talk, it was worth it!
Executive, Leonardo DRS
