Michael Platt

Pressure changes the way people think: how they weigh risks, how they read each other, and how well they perform. Michael Platt has spent nearly three decades measuring those changes and turning them into moves organizations can use. An anthropologist and neuroscientist, he helped pioneer neuroeconomics, the science of how the brain decides what something is worth. He has published more than 300 articles and secured more than $80 million in research funding. He directs the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative and is one of a select group of Penn professors appointed across schools: Wharton, medicine, and psychology. He has also co-founded four companies.

When people feel close, their brain activity begins to sync, and in his research that alignment tracks with trust and cooperation. Platt did not leave that finding in the lab. His team built a wearable headband that measures the sync in live conversations, working teams, and full audiences. Cogwear, one of the companies he co-founded, brought it to market. The soft stuff, it turns out, is hardware.

His most striking evidence came from a disaster. For nearly two decades, he and his collaborators have studied a colony of monkeys on an island off Puerto Rico. When Hurricane Maria stripped the island of shade, the monkeys grew more tolerant, not less, and shared what shade remained. Before the storm, getting along made no measurable difference to survival. After it, monkeys with more friends were 42 percent less likely to die, in a study published in Science. The authors liken that edge to what social support does for people. His conclusion: stop fighting human wiring and design around it.

Organizations are already designing around it. He and Wharton colleague Elizabeth Johnson helped write PwC’s guidance for better board decisions, starting with structured pauses for reflection. He has been on the road with PwC presenting it. With the consulting firm Slalom, his team tested a change any organization can try Monday. Ten-minute breaks between meetings increased brain signals associated with lower stress and creative thinking.

Organizations across industries call on him to sharpen decisions, strengthen teams, and help people perform under pressure. They range from Deloitte, KPMG, and Vanguard to Microsoft’s Work Lab, Abbott, the McKinsey Health Institute, and Starbucks. The relationships last. PwC, Fox Media, Slalom, and the Cleveland Guardians have each brought him in for keynotes, workshops, and consulting. NFL and NBA teams work with him on performance under pressure. NASA, federal judges, and school superintendents have brought him in on decisions and teamwork when the stakes are high. He advises the United Nations Strategic Planning Network, has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and has appeared on PBS and Huberman Lab.

As AI takes over routine work, the human skills it struggles to replace become the ones that set organizations apart. A chatbot can mirror your words, he notes, but real connection runs on faces, voices, and timing. The updated 2025 edition of his book The Leader’s Brain makes that case in a new chapter on AI. His next book, on staying clear-headed and connected under pressure, arrives in 2027. His keynotes pair hard data with stories from the island, the locker room, and the boardroom, and can include a live exercise that shows how fast trust forms. Beyond keynotes, he leads workshops, advises organizations, and runs an interactive session, Coaching for Connection.

WHY AUDIENCES WILL BE BETTER OFF

• Audiences leave able to keep their own stress from spreading, so people speak up and problems surface while they are still small.
• Audiences leave able to decide which human abilities to invest in as AI takes on routine work, and which tasks to hand to technology.
• Audiences leave with practical, research-backed ways to build trust and lift team performance, in person and on screens.
• Audiences leave making decisions differently, because they can see the shortcuts their brains take and catch the ones that betray them.
• Audiences leave able to build recovery into the workday, protect their best thinking, and sustain high performance through demanding stretches.