Nell 3d: Keynote speaker
What If the Most Powerful Thing You Could Do Today Is Stop?
A keynote for leaders who've hit the ceiling of more.
You've optimized everything you can optimize. You've pushed through, shown up, and delivered. And still, it’s not adding up to what you thought success would feel like.
Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey (Nell3D) is the leadership strategist who will show you why. And what to do instead.
A former frontline humanitarian with degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, Columbia, and London Business School, Nell brings Systematic Subtraction™ to stages around the world: a proprietary approach that helps ambitious, big-hearted leaders restore their energy, clarity, and impact.
Not by doing more. By finally, strategically, doing less.
Her audiences leave with a tool they'll use on Monday.
Signature KeyNote:
Subtract to Succeed™
Build success that feels as good as it looks.
You've done everything right. The career, family, impact, reputation, retirement savings. People rely on you, and you show up every time, over-caffeinated, over-committed, and almost always over-prepared. But in the nonexistent margins between back-to-back calendar invites, a question keeps coming up:
If this is success, why doesn't it feel good?
Here's what no one told you: the ceiling you've hit isn't a personal failing. It's a structural flaw. And no amount of optimization, habit-stacking, or mindfulness can fix a broken design. The system itself needs to change.
That's not a productivity problem. It's a subtraction problem.
In this fresh, honest, and human keynote, Nell 3D draws on decades of frontline leadership, from refugee camps to boardrooms, and the near-fatal car accident that made the cost of over-work impossible to ignore. She introduces Systematic Subtraction™: an approach for doing less of what costs you, and more of what actually counts.
Using her signature Stop-Drop-Roll sequence, audiences move from exhausted, overextended, and tempted to check out, to relieved, restored, and re-energized to make the contributions they want to make.
You'll laugh. You'll exhale. And you'll walk away knowing exactly what to release – and what that subtraction will protect.
Ideal For:
Senior leaders,
Executive teams, and
High-performing women navigating complexity, burnout risk, or organizational change.
Delivery:
Delivered as a keynote, half-day workshop, or multi-session leadership series.
Your audience will leave with:
A new lens for diagnosing what's actually draining them, and why willpower can't fix it
The Stop-Drop-Roll practice: a structured, repeatable tool for identifying and releasing what no longer serves their goals
A framework for spotting "win-win-wins": single actions that advance multiple dimensions of their work and life simultaneously
Permission (backed by systems science) to do less… and lead more.
What event planners and participants have said:
Nell doesn’t just inspire, she transforms. Her ‘Systematic Subtraction’ framework shifted my perspective, helping me cut through analysis paralysis, prioritize what truly matters, and show up more powerfully in every aspect of my life. If you want a keynote that sparks real change, Nell is the one.
Nuno Guerreiro, Google - Global Community advisor
"Nell 3D delivered an AWESOME keynote for our global network of business school deans and senior leaders! We all left with a powerful roadmap to wellbeing, legacy, and performance. Her vulnerable and dynamic approach helped us create time for insight into ourselves."
Lisa Leander, CEO, WIBE NetworkKeynotes deliver a crafted arc. Fireside chats deliver something different: the unscripted moment, unexpected connections, an answer that lands exactly because it wasn't rehearsed. For audiences who want depth over polish, or conversation over performance, a fireside with Nell is the right format.
Fireside Chats
Some speakers are great on script. Nell 3D is just as good off it.
The Subtraction Paradox: Why doing less is the most strategic thing a leader can do right now
The 3D Leader: Aligning performance, wellbeing, and legacy, without burning out, opting out, or selling out
From Burnout to Breakthrough: What sustainable high performance actually requires
Purpose Isn't Enough: Why even world-changing work can hollow you out. And what to do about it
topics include:
Format
45–90 minutes · With moderator or host · Q&A welcome
Your audience will leave with:
Answers to the questions they actually came with, shaped by your host, event, and/or Q&A
A framework they can immediately engage with and apply, delivered in conversation rather than presentation
The rare experience of watching a leader think in real time, modeling exactly the kind of reflective, adaptive leadership Nell teaches
The feeling of having been part of something genuine, unique, and human
What event planners and participants have said:
- "It was my pleasure to highlight you at the conference, and I feel grateful to have been able to share your message with our governance and leadership community. You were amazing!"
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–Annalisa Barrett, KPMG Board Leadership Center and Corporate Directors Forum"I needed a lift and you provided that. Thank you for being so transparent and vulnerable."
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–Kerrie McDevitt, Impact Growth Partners
About Nell
That collision between ambition and alignment became the foundation of everything she teaches now.
Nell holds degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, Columbia, and London Business School. She is a
Forbes Senior Contributor,
an executive coach, an EQUUS-certified facilitator, and the
creator of two proprietary approaches to leadership: Systematic Subtraction™ and Lead in 3D™.
Her forthcoming book is Subtract to Succeed: Build Success That Feels as Good as It Looks.
A self-described Subtraction Activist, Nell's mission is to help women who influence capital and culture build success that feels as good as it looks — not someday, but now. Her practice is a certified B Corporation and proud member of 1% for the Planet, because the same values she brings to the stage she holds herself to off it.
She works with leaders at Google, National Park Service, American Express, Columbia Business School, and Coca-Cola — and she'll be the first to tell you she's practicing Systematic Subtraction right alongside them.
Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey (Nell 3D) spent years doing the work most people leave corporate to pursue: she helped build Tomorrow's Youth Organization in the Middle East, driving impact at the intersection of business and social good. And discovered it still wasn't enough. Not because the work wasn't meaningful. Because ironically, her one-dimensional focus on purpose was costing her the satisfaction of a three-dimensional life.
The Most Powerful Thing You Could Do Today?
Book the talk that helps your audience do less, and lead better.
Nell works with event organizers to customize every keynote and fireside for the audience, the moment, and the outcome you need.
Availability is limited. If you have a date in mind, let’s start there.
Questions first? Get in touch