Never Out of Options
Decision-making, leverage, and leadership under extreme uncertainty.
Siamak Namazi spent two decades as a strategist and executive. Then a trip to Tehran to attend a funeral turned into nearly eight years in Iran’s Evin Prison. He came out the longest-held American hostage in Iran.
In captivity, he pressure-tested his strategy toolkit. He “hired” a consultant version of himself to work impossible problems, turned interrogations into dystopian negotiations that won concessions from people who held every card, and built allies inside and outside the prison.
This isn’t a typical survivor story. It’s the playbook that helped bring him home, adapted for leaders of organizations large and small who face decisions with half the facts, a counterpart holding the stronger hand, and no good options on the table. The stories, often surprisingly funny, are what make the lessons stick.
The talk has resonated with audiences as different as dance studio owners, corporate executives, and senior Air Force officers, earning standing ovations and repeat invitations.
It’s your client’s problem
How to step outside a crisis and think about it like an advisor, not the person it’s happening to.
If you can’t find leverage, look again
How to find influence when the other side seems to hold every card, whether it’s a bigger competitor, a tough client, or a hostile counterpart.
Don’t let regret take you hostage
How to keep mistakes from freezing your judgment when the next decision matters most.
Conviction attracts allies
Why clear commitment turns colleagues, partners, and even strangers into allies who bring the leverage you lack.
Make the impossible call
A simple test for acting when the odds can’t be calculated: can you survive the worst if you act, and live with the worst if you don’t?
The full talk, for conferences, annual meetings, and leadership summits.
A guided conversation for executive audiences, boards, and smaller rooms.
Also available: tailored sessions for leadership teams and boards. Get in touch to discuss.
Rates available upon request.
Siamak Namazi is a strategy executive turned keynote speaker whose career spans boardrooms and policy circles. For more than twenty years he advised multinational companies on strategy, market entry, and political risk in frontier markets, ran consulting firms, and led strategic planning for a private energy company.
He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins SAIS, where he researches how leaders make decisions under extreme pressure and uncertainty. It’s a subject he knows firsthand as the longest-held American hostage in Iran. He also serves on the advisory boards of Hostage Aid Worldwide and the McCain Institute’s Freedom for Political Prisoners Initiative.
Siamak is an alumnus of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders and Asia Society’s Asia 21, and has held fellowships at the Wilson Center, CSIS, and the National Endowment for Democracy.
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“…bravest and most compelling interview I’ve done.”
— Christiane Amanpour, CNNSiamak did what no one in Evin Prison was supposed to do: he spoke to the world. It was a risk, and it helped change the course of his case. It’s a powerful example of what he means by being Never Out of Options.
Watch the interview →Hear Siamak on the keynote
The stories and lessons behind Never Out of Options.