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Daniel Murray

Author

Building empathetic leaders who create deep understanding, motivate their people and foster a culture of sustained performance.

Visit Daniel's website

About

Gender: Male

Nationality: Australia

Languages: English

Travels from: Australia

Engagement Types

Topics

Table of Contents

Biography Highlights

Australia’s leading authority on Strategic Empathy, Daniel Murray blends the worlds of organisational strategy, psychology and behavioural economics seamlessly to create transformational change

Biography

About Daniel Murray

Daniel Murray is a highly regarded keynote speaker, trainer, and the author of The Empathy Gap as well as Aligning Culture & Strategy: How clarity, empathy and leadership drive high performance. He works with senior leaders and teams to boost performance by fostering empathy, trust, and a culture of accountability. Known for his engaging and thought-provoking sessions, Daniel blends behavioural science, emotional intelligence, and practical leadership strategy to help organisations build more committed, resilient, and high-performing teams.

Currently based in Sydney, Australia, Daniel is a sought-after motivational keynote speaker, business consultant, and author. He has worked with some of the biggest companies in Australia and New Zealand, witnessing firsthand that building empathy is vital for future strategic competitive advantage. With a background in mathematics and strategy, Daniel has developed a passion for understanding emotions and has become an expert in empathy, leadership, strategy, and emotional intelligence. Like few others, he blends diverse concepts through simple yet engaging stories to share groundbreaking ideas.

After a career in corporate strategy and management consulting within Australia’s largest financial services organisations, Daniel now helps businesses and leaders to drive performance through people, culture, and empathy. Blending his background in mathematics and strategy with a deep understanding of emotions, neuroscience, and behavioural economics, Daniel has become an expert in building the capabilities, tools, and strategies to embed strategic empathy.

His company, Empathic Consulting, was born out of Daniel’s desire to embed empathic leadership tools in business. He has seen time and time again that businesses which largely ignore the unique emotional needs of people suffer disloyal customers, higher staff turnover, and lower overall performance. Through his presentations, workshops, and consulting services, Daniel empowers leaders to leverage empathy as a capability in order to cultivate productive teamwork and experience tangible corporate success. He is renowned for his ability to entertain audiences with engaging stories, mind-bending questions, and relevant case studies that bring to life the often-hidden side of human behaviour.

Videos

Popular Talks

Leading with Empathy

Empathy is a capability you can, and must, build for success. From perspective-taking to becoming consciously curious to exploring for understanding and leading with empathy and impact. In this motivational speech, Daniel unpacks the reasons it can be challenging and provides a ‘how to’ process of empathy in the workplace.

Available: In person, Virtually

Managing Pirates & Passengers

Many teams seem to falter under growing tensions, with falling productivity and unaddressed issues. Often, the culprits are Pirates or Passengers. This inspirational session targets these challenges head-on, offering fun, practical guidance on leading decisively. Be inspired to manage team dynamics, enhance team performance and drive your team towards success with proven strategies and simple tools.

Available: In person, Virtually

Empathy & Ethics in a world of AI

Amidst breakneck technological change, some think humans will soon be redundant. Nothing can be farther from the truth. In this incredibly inspiring, captivating and interactive session, Daniel shows the importance of empathy & ethics in decision making and why we need good people now more than ever. This keynote is essential for teams looking to implement AI without losing their people.

Available: In person, Virtually

Pirates, Passengers and Managing People

A phrase too common in modern leadership is that people need to ”get on the bus”. This desire to drive people to compliance is a driver of apathy, disengagement and underperformance.

In this session, the focus is on how we build and maintain teams that are aligned, committed and driven for success. This includes building clarity around expectations, identifying signs of tension and taking action to address the critical issues in your team. Giving hard feedback is one of the most feared and poorly performed skills in leadership, but it is also one of the most vital.

We explore the mindset shift required and provide a clear framework for better feedback that supports people to perform.

Key activities & Take-aways:

Understanding the drivers of apathy and disengagement in teams
The impact of toxic avoidance on team culture
Reframing the importance of everyone being committed to the cause
How to give effective feedback to support performance
Maintaining trust in teams when we have underperformers

Available: In person, Virtually

Empathy in the Workplace

Empowering teams to build a culture of trust and performance

Available: In person, Virtually

Ethics & Practical Empathy

Making strategic decisions and managing risks in a complex world

Available: In person, Virtually

Leading the Great Reconnection

Rebuilding the connections teams need to drive performance

Available: In person, Virtually

Daniel'S

Testimonials

He engaged people in the room who I didn't think would ever respond, let alone take-away actions. Post this session, I observed genuine behaviour changes. This was one of the best things I could have done for the team.

Rochelle Eldridge

Executive Manager,

CBA

As a master storyteller, he led us as willing volunteers, on a journey of change. Through powerful analogies and images finely balanced by science and supporting frameworks (to build Empathy) Daniel speaks and people not only listen, but are compelled to do better.

Lorraine Murtagh

Global Head of Learning,

Partners in Performance

Thought inspiring, provoking and interesting. Took you through the emotional journey of using empathy in your business.

Robbie Cooke

CEO,

Tyro Payments

I can honestly say it was one of the best sessions I have been part of. His content was unique and his style was very interactive. I highly recommend using Daniel if you are looking to build empathy & understanding to drive performance.

Daniel Markovski

Group Sales Manager,

Nova Entertainment

After delivering a session on Leading with Empathy to a group of mining leaders at a remote site in Western Australia, one participant remarked: I wish I'd learned this 30 years ago!

Mining Operational Readiness Principal,

Fortescue

Books

The Empathy Gap: The Bridge to Real Connection and Lasting Influence

A groundbreaking new handbook for business leaders who want to form stronger connections with the people they lead. In The Empathy Gap, corporate strategy and management consultant Daniel Murray delivers a unique and unconventional approach to contemporary leadership, emphasising the power of empathy. Empathy is not just a secondary soft skill, but rather a powerful tool for driving performance, fostering innovation and leading in today’s complex, diverse and fast-paced world. Exhibiting empathy is not a magical skill that some people have and others don’t. It is a capability that we can all build and nurture. Drawing on the latest research, personal anecdotes and real-world case studies, Murray lays out a detailed and practical guide for leaders to harness the transformative power of empathy and achieve outstanding results in their organisations.

Aligning Culture & Strategy: How clarity, empathy and leadership drive high performance

Culture doesn’t eat strategy for breakfast! While vitally important, a great culture with a poor strategy will fail you just as much as a good strategy and a bad culture. Even getting them both right independently can be challenging. Leadership teams are the heart of organisations. If you are a leader looking to build an aligned organisation that drives sustained and purposeful performance across diverse groups of people, Aligning Culture and Strategy is for you. It focuses on how leaders and their leadership teams set the foundations for building an aligned organisation that drives sustained and purposeful performance.