Available to book
Jennifer Shahade
Enhance strategic decision-making with Jennifer Shahade, speaker, chess champion, commentator, and host. Jennifer works with organizations to improve risk assessment, negotiation tactics, and inclusive leadership. Three-time US National Chess Champion who has delivered talks to MIT, BCG, Merrill Lynch, and more.
Jennifer Shahade is a three-time US National Chess Champion, PokerStars' MindSports Ambassador, and author who bridges competitive gaming with real-world decision-making strategies. Jennifer became the first woman to win the US Junior Open. She's also earned two US Women's Championship titles and an Olympic silver medal.
Jennifer has authored several books, including Chess Queens and Thinking Sideways: How To Think Like a Chess Player and Win at Life. Her writing has been published in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times. A two-time Global Poker Award winner, Jennifer hosts the award-winning podcast The GRID and serves on the board of the World Chess Hall of Fame. In 2023, she became an important voice in exposing gender inequity in chess, co-founding 9 Queens and serving on the advisory board of the Women in Chess Foundation.
Jennifer translates complex strategic concepts from chess and poker into practical frameworks for better decision-making in business and life. Her experience competing at the highest levels in multiple mind sports gives her unique insights into risk assessment, pattern recognition, and adaptive thinking under pressure. She has delivered talks at MIT, Yale, Harvard, and NYU, and consulted with organizations including Boston Consulting Group and Merrill Lynch.
Audiences learn concrete techniques for improving decision quality, negotiation tactics drawn from poker strategy, and methods for building more inclusive competitive environments.
Book Jennifer to help your organization think more strategically and compete more effectively in high-stakes situations.
Topics, sessions and talks
Jennifer Shahade draws on her career as a national chess champion to explore how strategic thinking shapes everyday decisions. Using accessible examples from real games, she examines risk, long-term planning, and cognitive bias, showing how even non-players can apply chess principles to business and leadership. The session blends storytelling with practical frameworks for clearer thinking, better judgment under pressure, and more confident decision-making.
Jennifer Shahade uses real poker hands from elite competition to unpack negotiation, risk, and behavioral psychology. She breaks down complex situations into simple strategic lessons, revealing how people read information, manage uncertainty, and respond to incentives. Blending humor with brilliant analysis, she shows how poker mirrors financial and organizational decision-making, offering tools for stronger negotiation, improved risk assessment, and more adaptive thinking.
Jennifer Shahade traces the history of female chess champions while weaving in her own experience at the top of a male-dominated sport. The session explores gender, culture, and power through the lens of the chess queen, addressing issues such as representation, stereotype threat, and inclusion. Combining history, personal narrative, and creative perspectives, it offers insight into how cultural structures shape opportunity and leadership.
The Chess world has reckoned with superhuman AI for 30 years, and the game is more popular than ever. Jennifer Shahade summarizes this uncanny reality, while explaining how you can use AI to develop pattern recognition, while also knowing how to 'turn the computer off' at the right moment. Concepts like the 'sandwich method' and 'Thinking Sideways' will give you concrete ways to help monitor your own usage and make sure that you are using AI to become more human, not less.
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frequently asked questions
Something we've not covered here?
Jennifer Shahade structures her sessions around real competitive material — actual chess games and live poker hands from elite play — which she uses as case studies to extract strategic principles around risk, judgment, and decision-making. Personal narrative from her own career at the top of both disciplines runs through the content, grounding the frameworks in lived experience rather than theory alone.
Jennifer Shahade speaks on strategic decision-making and risk assessment drawn from chess and poker, negotiation tactics from elite competition, and gender, representation, and inclusion in high-performance environments. She is a three-time US National Chess Champion, PokerStars MindSports Ambassador, and author of Chess Queens, with talks delivered at MIT, Yale, and Harvard, and consulting work with Boston Consulting Group and Merrill Lynch.
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