Keynote Speaker · Published Author · Executive Coach
Performance was never meant to cost you everything.
It starts with a philosophy I call Thrive to Perform™ — we thrive in order to perform, and perform in order to thrive. One virtuous circle, never a trade-off. After 25 years inside high-pressure industries and a decade of research, my work is the promotion of health and high performance as a single project — for leaders, teams, and the organisations they build.
About Krumma
Where academic rigour meets real-world practice.
Business leader and owner, management mentor, executive coach — and PhD candidate. Passionate about people and their capacity to rebuild.
Krumma Jónsdóttir spent more than 25 years inside international hospitality — 21 roles, from front desk to executive committee. She did not leave that world for academia; she expanded into it. Today she leads and owns Positive Performances, coaches executives with more than 4,000 hours behind her, and is completing a PhD in strategic management and leadership. Practitioner and scholar at once — that double vantage point is the heart of her work, and on her stage academic rigour and lived practice are the same lens.
She founded Positive Performances in 2020 on the conviction she calls Thrive to Perform™: that we thrive in order to perform, and perform in order to thrive — one virtuous circle, never a trade-off. Her stance is promotion, not repair — building mental health and performance proactively and upstream, long before problems force the issue. The HEROIC Paradox, her keynote framework on why our greatest strengths quietly become our greatest risks, sits inside that same belief: that people, and the cultures they work in, have a real capacity to rebuild.
Krumma holds the MAPPCP — a Master of Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology — the qualification that fused her intuition and field experience with solid scientific foundations. She is a published author — of the Amazon Top 100 series Storm Driven Growth and of Psychosocial Power — a certified Senior Practitioner with the EMCC, and a contributor to Forbes and Brainz Magazine. Icelandic by origin and based in Paris, she works across hospitality, higher education, and international organisations, and speaks fluently in French, English, and Icelandic.
- Founder, owner & Director, Positive Performances (2020) — Coaching, EdTech & MentalTech
- Author — Storm Driven Growth (Amazon Top 100, 2024) and Psychosocial Power
- PhD candidate — Strategic Management & Leadership
- MAPPCP — Master of Applied Positive Psychology & Coaching Psychology
- EMCC Certified Senior Practitioner · Contributor to Forbes & Brainz Magazine
- 10 years in higher education · 8 years of research involvement
- 25+ years in international hospitality · 4,000+ coaching hours
Signature Talks
Keynotes — a selection.
Examples of the talks Krumma gives; every one is shaped around your audience.
The HEROIC Paradox
The strengths that built your success are the same ones quietly burning you out. Krumma's signature keynote — a research-informed framework that reframes how leaders see their own drive.
Success, Not Sacrifice
Dismantling the myth that elite performance demands self-destruction. A practical, evidence-based case for the Thrive to Perform model.
Wellbeing Is a Performance Strategy
Burnout isn't a wellbeing issue — it's an operational risk. The commercial case for sustainable high-performance cultures, backed by real research data.
They Don't Need Motivation. They Need Regulation.
Why the future of leadership is emotional regulation, not relentless drive — and how to build teams that recover as fast as they perform.
Performance at the Edge
Lessons from the kitchen, the service floor, and the hospitality industries where pressure is the job. Building cultures that endure.
A Keynote Built for Your Room
Every audience carries its own paradox. Krumma works with you to shape a bespoke keynote around the people, pressures, and questions specific to your event.
Speaking Engagements
Stages across Europe and beyond.
From research conferences to industry congresses.
On stage · Industry leadership panel
Books & Writing
From the stage to the page.
Thought leadership that outlives the keynote.
Krumma's thinking reaches well beyond the stage. She is the author of Storm Driven Growth — an Amazon Top 100 series — and of Psychosocial Power , writes regularly for Forbes and Brainz Magazine, and publishes research through her Thriving Observatory. Her written work puts the Thrive to Perform™ philosophy directly into readers' hands: the same conviction her audiences hear live — that performance and wellbeing are one project, not a trade-off.
Storm Driven Growth
A four-part series for thriving individuals, outstanding professionals, and performing leaders. The first guide, STOP — Full SSSTOPPPP , turns adversity into method — practical tools to pause, reflect, and act with intention, grounded in positive psychology and the HEROIC model.
Psychosocial Power
On the psychosocial competencies that quietly decide who thrives — the human capabilities that turn pressure into performance and make wellbeing a skill, not a hope.
Krumma captivated our audience with striking statistics, concrete examples, and practical solutions. A keynote that was both informative and inspiring — and left tools we could put to use immediately.
Book Krumma
Ready to give your audience a new definition of success?
Krumma speaks for corporate, hospitality, leadership, and conference audiences across Europe and internationally — in French, English, or Icelandic. Get in touch to discuss your event, your audience, and the keynote that will fit your room.
France +33 (0)6 13 12 30 70 · Iceland +354 772 4534 · krumma@positiveperformances.fr
