Speaking & Facilitation

Most conference sessions are forgotten by the time the room clears. The ones that stay with people are the ones where the speaker has actually lived what they are talking about.

Guillermo has spent more than 25 years in local government and has been speaking to municipal audiences for most of that time, at provincial and national conferences, at leadership institutes, and in all-staff meetings ranging from a dozen people to more than a thousand. He speaks the way he consults: plainly, with real examples, and without the polish that gets in the way of the point.

Where He Has Spoken

• CAMA, Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators, most recently on AI in local government, one of the highest-rated sessions of that conference
• UBCM, Union of BC Municipalities, including Voting over the Internet in BC and Employee Recruitment and Retention
• LGMA, Local Government Management Association, including Strategic Planning from Preparation to Evaluation
• MISA BC, Municipal Information Systems Association
• MATI, Capilano University's Municipal Administrators Training Institute, where he is faculty, including Ethics and the Responsible CAO
• All-staff and leadership sessions for municipal organizations of every size

Topics

Mental Health in Local Government

Mental health is one of the most underestimated and least understood pressures in public service. Public servants absorb community frustration, work under constant scrutiny, and are expected to carry it without comment. The pressure has been rising for years.

This session is honest about that. It covers how to recognize what you are seeing in yourself and in colleagues, what it actually feels like from the inside, and practical steps for moving forward and for supporting someone else.

Guillermo speaks from lived experience. He has dealt with and come through his own mental health challenges, and he talks about it directly because the silence around it is part of the problem. He is not a clinician, and the session is not a substitute for professional support. What it does is help people recognize what is happening, give them language for it, and point them toward the help that exists.

It can be delivered for Council, for staff, or for boards.

Format: one to two hours, tailored to the audience.

AI in Local Government: The Uses and the Pitfalls

There is a great deal of noise about AI in the public sector and very little practical guidance. This session cuts through it.

Guillermo has implemented AI inside a municipality and measured what it saved, including an automated process that reduced a five-to-six hour daily email workload to about an hour of review. He shows what actually works, what is being oversold, where the real risks sit for a public body, and how a municipality can start small without a large budget or a dedicated technology team.

Audiences leave with specific ideas they can test the following week, not a general sense that AI is coming.

Formats: conference keynote, half-day or full-day workshop, Council or senior leadership session.

Overcoming Obstacles: A Motivational Session

Guillermo left Argentina as a young man, arrived with almost nothing, rebuilt in the United States, and then rebuilt again in Canada. He went on to lead municipal organizations as a Chief Administrative Officer.

This hour long session is about what that actually took. Not a highlight reel, but the specific habits, decisions and mistakes behind it, and what he would tell someone standing at the start of something difficult. It is built around real examples and practical things people can apply to their own goals, whatever those are.

Audiences find it direct and personal rather than polished, which is precisely why it lands.

Format: one hour, suitable for conferences, staff events and leadership gatherings.

Team Building: What Strong Teams Actually Do

A two-hour working session, not a lecture.

Guillermo has built and rebuilt teams throughout his career, including organizations that were struggling when he arrived. This session puts a real team through practical exercises that reveal how they communicate, decide and work under pressure, then draws out the small, specific changes that move a team forward. The concepts are ones he has applied repeatedly, with results.

It works for leadership teams, departments and whole organizations, and it is tailored to the group in the room rather than delivered from a template.

Format: two hours, on site with your team.

Tailored to Your Audience

These are the topics Guillermo speaks on most often, not a fixed catalogue. Sessions are built around the group in the room, and he is glad to adapt a topic, combine two, or develop something specific to what your organization or conference is facing.

Why Ferrero Forward?

Guillermo is not a professional speaker who researched local government. He is a former Chief Administrative Officer who has sat through more forgettable conference sessions than he can count, and who prepares his own because he knows what an audience of municipal professionals will and will not sit still for.

Every session comes from something he has done, built, or lived through.