Speaking Engagements
Insights, stories, and conversations about building an intentional life.
Arman Golrokhian is an immigrant, father, sustainability professional, consultant, clarity coach, and speaker who helps ambitious people build lives aligned with their values, dreams, and desires. After earning dual master’s degrees in Public Policy and Sustainability from the University of Michigan, Arman spent over a decade working as a management consultant at the intersection of sustainability, energy, policy, business, and strategy.
After achieving his American Dream—and many of the markers of professional success he once pursued—he began asking a more fundamental question: What is the difference between success and fulfillment, and how can anyone define and build their own version of a rich and meaningful life? Today, Arman speaks and coaches on personal clarity, intentional living, purpose, and redefining success on your own terms.
About Arman
Arman Golrokhian is an immigrant, father, sustainability professional, consultant, clarity coach, and speaker who helps ambitious people build lives aligned with their values, dreams, and desires. His work focuses on questions that sit at the heart of both his professional and personal journey: What are you optimizing for?
As an immigrant who came to the United States with ambitious dreams, Arman has built a career at the intersection of sustainability, energy, policy, business, and strategy. He holds master’s degrees in Public Policy and Sustainability from the University of Michigan and began his career in engineering before working with the United Nations and later advising corporations, utilities, regulators, investors, cities, and communities across North America on complex challenges and multi-billion-dollar decisions related to the clean energy transition.
But after years of pursuing and achieving many of the conventional markers of success, Arman began to question whether success was the same as fulfillment. That question eventually led him to leave a successful consulting career and rethink what he wanted his own life and work to look like.
Today, as a clarity coach, Arman works with ambitious professionals who have big dreams and want more than conventional success. Drawing on his experience as a strategy consultant, he helps people step back from the inherited expectations, explore their values, reconnect with their dreams and desires, and make more intentional decisions about their careers and lives.
His keynotes combine personal stories with practical frameworks around purpose, intentional living, career clarity, sustainability, ambition, and redefining success. Whether speaking to students deciding what comes next, accomplished professionals wondering what comes after success, sustainability professionals questioning the sustainability of their own lives, or international communities navigating their own version of the American Dream, Arman invites audiences to pause, evaluate their lives, ask better questions, and build a life on their own terms.
Arman’s Keynotes
Living an Intentional Life: Build a Life on Your Own Terms
What if, instead of optimizing your life around career success, income, status, titles, or other people’s expectations, you designed it around what genuinely matters to you?
In this engaging, story-driven keynote, Arman shares his story and explores how to:
Clarify what truly matters to you, identify your values, desires, and dreams
Strategies to de-risk career and life transitions
Practical frameworks and techniques for making intentional choices
Ideal for: professional conferences, leadership programs, universities, and organizations looking for an inspiring conversation about purpose, fulfillment, and intentional living.
What Are You Optimizing For? Rethinking Career Success
We spend years optimizing for grades, credentials, promotions, compensation, and titles—but what if those aren't actually the things we want most? This talk invites students and professionals to rethink what they are optimizing for, distinguish between external measures of success and personal fulfillment, and make career decisions that are aligned with who they are and the life they want to build. Through personal stories and practical reflections, Arman explores the gap between achievement and fulfillment and offers a practical framework for stepping back, reconnecting with what matters, and intentionally designing the next chapter.
Ideal for: university students, early- and mid-career professionals, entrepreneurs, career development programs, and professional associations.
The American Dream: What Happens When You Actually Achieve It?
Arman shares his personal journey as an immigrant who came to the United States with almost nothing but ambitious dreams, earned two masters degrees, awards, recognitions, and built the career he thought he wanted, and eventually realized that achieving the American Dream doesn't necessarily mean finding fulfillment. Through stories of immigration, ambition, success, and reinvention, this talk explores how to define success for yourself rather than inherit someone else's definition of it.
Ideal for: international students and professionals, immigrant communities, global audiences, and anyone navigating the tension between ambition, expectations, and a meaningful life.
Rethinking Sustainability: Building a Sustainable Life Not Just Green Gadgets
Sustainability professionals spend their careers thinking about how to build a more sustainable world—but what does it mean to build a sustainable life? Drawing on his own identity as a sustainability professional working with the United Nations, and hundreds of clients including cities, government, corporations, and investors across North America, as well as his own journey of rethinking success and fulfillment, Arman explores the often-overlooked connection between the sustainability of our work and the sustainability of our lives. The talk examines how purpose, values, work, well-being, and personal fulfillment intersect—and what happens when the people working to create a better world are themselves experiencing burnout, disengagement, or anxiety about whether their work is truly making the impact they hoped for. Ultimately, it invites sustainability professionals to expand the definition of sustainability beyond gadgets, systems, and technologies and ask a more personal question: Is the life I am building a sustainable model for me and my family?
Ideal for: sustainability and climate professionals, environmental organizations, universities, and audiences interested in purpose-driven careers and meaningful impact.
Finding Your True North
A highly interactive workshop that helps participants move from vague feelings of being stuck or uncertain toward greater clarity about what they actually want and practical next steps they need to take. Through guided reflection, structured questions, and hands-on exercises, participants explore their values, desires, dreams, and priorities—and begin translating that self-awareness into intentional decisions and action.
Ideal for: students, professionals, career-transition programs, leadership groups, and organizations looking for a practical, reflective experience rather than a traditional lecture.
“Arman is an insightful and engaging speaker. His keynote presentations are intellectually rigorous and deeply inspiring. He has a rare ability to connect ideas to lived experience in ways that resonate with and inspire diverse audiences.”
Mounir Ouanaimi
Director of Admissions and Recruiting- University of Michigan
“Arman doesn’t just speak, he moves rooms. He pairs deep insight with a willingness to be vulnerable, he transforms complex topics into stories that captivate, challenge, and stay with you long after the talk ends.”
Stephanie Judd
Founder & Managing Partner- Wolf & Heron.
“Arman is an engaging and thought-provoking speaker who leaves a lasting impression. Having invited him to speak to my students multiple times, I’ve seen his ability to challenge conventional thinking and inspire students to think critically and reconsider their assumptions about success, careers, and the lives they want to build. His authentic perspective and compelling storytelling make him a valuable voice in any room.”
Chris White
Faculty Associate, Center for Positive Organizations
Lecturer, Management & Organizations
Stephen M. Ross School of Business, The University of Michigan
“Arman is so inspiring! I appreciated that Arman's Leadership Profile was specific enough that he knew when he had "achieved" it. I respected his ability to notice that he had achieved the American Dream and is now in a transition period of trying to figure out what is next for him.”
Anonymous Feedback
Business Student
University of Michigan Ross School of Business
Anonymous Feedback
Business Student
University of Michigan Ross School of Business
“Arman was a wonderful speaker whose message left a lasting impression on me: the very things that make us feel different or inferior can become our strengths. His perspective challenged me to rethink how we view our differences and reinforced the importance of inclusion in my personal leadership philosophy.”
I appreciated Arman’s perspective on how his identity as an Iranian immigrant initially made him feel held back, but a shift in mindset helped him recognize it as a strength and use it to discover his purpose and passion. My own identities have often been a source of imposter syndrome, so his story inspired me to take pride in who I am and embrace my unique strengths.
Anonymous Feedback
Business Student
University of Michigan Ross School of Business