Lance Diaresco
Rising from poverty to leading at Disney, Google, and other global brands, Lance's life work is centred on leadership discernment. From a career building global brands to a calling developing leaders, he helps leaders lead with clarity, trust and impact.
Biography
Growing up in poverty, Lance earned his way through scholarships to Disney, Google, and beyond. He was born in a jeepney in the Philippines. His father died when he was seven. He developed resilience, compassion and courage that shaped how he leads and the work he does today.
In many organisations, the full picture rarely reaches the top. People filter the issues before they go up. Pressure narrows thinking. Groupthink filters out challenge. Assumptions go unquestioned. The result: costly decisions that could have been avoided and missed opportunities.
The leadership capability that addresses this gap has a name. Discernment: the leadership capacity to see a situation as it actually is, to make honest judgments, and to act with integrity.
For over 30 years, Lance led iconic brands across Disney, Google, Colgate, Levi's and P&G. He built high-performing teams through multiple waves of disruption, from traditional media to digital transformation and now AI. What he saw, consistently, was this: the leaders who thrive are the ones who see more clearly, build deeper trust, and create more meaningful impact.
At Disney, he became the first Vice President of Corporate Brand Management in Asia Pacific. He built the region's first integrated 5-year content strategy and presented it to CEO Bob Iger. The brand research he led across Asia Pacific contributed to companywide findings that influenced major investments including theme park expansion and acquisitions such as Pixar and Marvel. He created Disney's Brand Stewardship Training and personally trained over 2,000 employees and partners internationally.
At Google, he served as Director of Brand and Creative Solutions, acting as a brand evangelist and championing YouTube as a storytelling platform to help brands build global reach and impact. He later co-founded Google’s Coaching by Mastery, contributing to $300M in revenue in its first year. The programme expanded globally and won the 2022 Brandon Hall Award for Best Advance in Skill and Capability Development. He continues to serve as a member of Google Mastery Faculty with 99% CSAT.
Lance is a TEDx speaker and the #2 Top Tribe Speaker at Mindvalley U in 2025.
Throughout his life, Lance volunteered in schools across the Philippines, Nepal, and Myanmar, joined wildlife conservation efforts in Africa, and brought storytelling to children with cancer.
Lance is currently writing a book on Discernment, to be published in 2027. His journey from a jeepney to the world's most recognised brands is where discernment was lived and learned, and where it became his work.
Employability
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Strategic Discernment Across Five Domains
Leadership | Innovation | Culture | Performance | Legacy
1. AS ARTICIFICAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) BECOMES SMARTER, WHAT MAKES LEADERS WISER?
The organisations that win in the AI age won't just have smarter tools. They'll have more discerning leaders.
AI is making every organisation smarter: more data, faster analysis, better predictions. But the hardest decisions are rarely between right and wrong.
They are between growth and efficiency, speed and rigour, innovation and risk. No system, however intelligent, can determine what should matter most, which trade-offs are worth making, or whose values should govern when they conflict. Those are human judgments, and they require discernment. Yet in most organisations, discernment is systematically undermined.
Pressure narrows thinking. Groupthink filters out challenge. Assumptions go unquestioned. The result: costly decisions that could have been avoided and missed opportunities.
As AI makes decision-making more decentralised, building discernment as an organisational capability becomes essential.
Leaders make clearer decisions under pressure.
Teams surface honest information rather than filtering it upward.
And organisations act on what genuinely matters.
AI is your engine. Discernment is your compass.
2. BUILDING HIGH-TRUST TEAMS TAHT SPEAK UP & STEP UP
Most leaders are not getting the full picture. People filter the issues before they go up. They avoid debate that can improve decisions. The root cause is not capability. People have learned, accurately, what is safe to say. Trust is built in the moments that cost something.
Lance shows leaders how to build discernment: mastering their response under pressure, turning friction into productive challenge, and navigating the polarities between support and challenge, empathy and accountability, autonomy and intervention.
Acting with integrity, from what you honestly see rather than from what is safe, is what makes those moments possible.
The result: teams that surface what matters, make better decisions, and take the risks needed for growth and innovation.
Discerning leaders create a culture where everyone speaks up, steps up, and delivers.
3. EXPANDING YOUR IMPACT: FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE
In business, ROI measures return on investment.
In life, ROI measures ripples of impact.
Every senior leader eventually asks the same question: What's next?
As John Maxwell put it: "Success is when I add value to myself. Significance is when I add value to others."
The shift from one to the other requires discernment.
Shifting from a career building global brands to a calling developing leaders,
Lance guides senior leaders through the Me-We-World Compass™:
Who am I becoming?
How am I connecting?
What am I contributing?
Support this shift and you keep what no hiring process can replicate: the judgment, relationships, and mentorship of wise leaders. Those that don't risk watching them disengage and wait for retirement.
Lead wisely. Live fully.
WORKSHOPS LANCE DIARESCO
For organisations that want to go deeper, Lance offers workshops designed to build the critical capabilities:
- Performance by Design: Individual Strengths to Collective Performance
- The Discerning Coach: Developing People While Delivering Results
- Courageous Leadership: Turning Tension into Innovation
Full workshop descriptions available on request.
Video
Reviews Spreker
Marriott International
Lucy Werner, Senior Vice President, Global PartnershipLance Diaresco has a remarkable ability to build authentic connections and trust. By combining frameworks, storytelling, and his own journey, Lance moves teams beyond fear to foster stronger bonds and a culture of trust. He inspires team members to own their careers and exemplifies resilience and empathy. Lance is the embodiment of what it means to practice these values, creating a foundation for happy, high-performing teams that thrive on trust and mutual respect. Any organization would be fortunate to have Lance driving their team culture forward.
Lance Diaresco has a unique strength as an international business leader and executive coach. He launched our internal sales coaching program. After proving that it builds our Googler’s confidence, grow our business, and more importantly delight our customers, the program is expanding. He is trusted by my team as he taps into his expertise as a former CMO of global brands. He inspired my team with his Vision & Mission Workshop. He also offered skills workshops such as Negotiation and Competitive Selling that are thought-provoking and practical.
The Walt Disney Company
Charlie Cain, Senior Vice President, Global Brand ManagementExtensive consumer insights experience combined with impeccable brand instincts enabled Lance Diaresco to create and scale Disney’s Brand Stewardship Training, creating the foundation of brand knowledge for a rapidly growing employee base as the company expand our brand footprint across Asia-Pacific Region. He also helped developed company-wide strategies that not only build our brand but also grow our business.