Stephen Bruyant-Langer
Stephen Bruyant-Langer has built a reputation as one of Europe’s most compelling leadership thinkers, shaped by a 35-year global career spanning executive roles, international headhunting and existential coaching. His framework is rooted in the three levels of human performance: the Rational, the Emotional and the Existential. This full-circle perspective gives leaders a clear, practical understanding of what drives success in modern business and what it takes to build a meaningful professional life.
From the moment he steps on stage, Stephen combines clarity, presence and warm storytelling. His message is grounded in extensive real-world experience and supported by decades of work with senior leaders across five continents.
Rational foundations
Stephen’s Rational grounding comes from senior positions at L’Oréal, The Coca-Cola Company and later as Managing Partner at Korn Ferry. These roles placed him at the heart of global business, where he observed how high-performing organizations develop talent, shape behavior and sustain competitive advantage. He brings this insight directly to his audiences, helping them understand the mechanics of performance, decision-making and strategic clarity.
In his keynotes, Stephen breaks down what actually drives results inside large corporations: structure, ambition, cultural codes and the silent expectations leaders face daily. His corporate background enables him to translate abstract leadership theories into practical, usable frameworks.
Emotional insight
For 15 years, Stephen worked as a top headhunter, conducting thousands of interviews with leaders at all stages of their careers. This immersion in human ambition and reinvention shaped his deep understanding of the Emotional level of performance.
He shares powerful stories about motivation, confidence, personal reinvention and the hidden dynamics that influence how people grow. Audiences gain clear guidance on how to identify what energizes them, how to manage their emotional drivers and how to build a career aligned with personal strengths.
This focus on psychology and human behavior is part of what makes Stephen’s approach stand out. He connects the inner world of leaders with the outer demands of business, showing how emotions influence performance and professional direction.
Existential depth
Today, Stephen works primarily at the Existential level as President & Founder of The Personal Business Plan. His coaching helps leaders navigate identity, transformation and meaning—questions that appear when careers advance and complexity increases.
He guides executives through shifts in ambition, purpose and personal direction, offering tools that blend philosophy, psychology, neurology and strategy. His latest book, The Existential Playbook, distills this approach and has strengthened his position as a significant voice in existential leadership.
Through this lens, he helps audiences understand the deeper forces behind fulfillment: Who am I as a leader? How do I create a life and career with intention? How do I transform without losing myself?
A Nordic leadership voice
Stephen brings a distinctly Nordic perspective to leadership—one shaped by transparency, trust and respect. As a long-standing Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School, Supervisor at the Technical University of Denmark and Associate at the Møller Institute, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, he bridges academic depth with practical relevance.
His teaching experience also defines his speaking style: calm, engaged, and focused on sharing knowledge with purpose. Stephen often states that his core identity is that of a Lecturer, encapsulated in his own guiding principle: “Teaching is the leadership of learning.”
A life shaped by learning and reinvention
With dual Danish–French citizenship, Stephen lives near Copenhagen with his wife and embodies the values he teaches: Life Ambition, Personal Reinvention, Learning Agility and Courage to Commit. His life philosophy shines through in every keynote, giving audiences both inspiration and concrete tools to navigate complexity, build resilience and pursue meaningful change.
When organizations book Stephen Bruyant-Langer, they gain a speaker who blends corporate understanding, psychological insight and existential clarity. His talks leave leaders better equipped to understand themselves, transform with intention and build careers and lives that matter.
