Nick Jankel

Nick Jankel is a keynote speaker who inspires, motivates, and empowers audiences worldwide to forge the future – rather than fail it.

Nick has led over 100 transformational innovation programs for enterprises like Diageo, Novartis, Vodafone, Tesco, and Microsoft leveraging his own and proven Exponential & Sustainable™ process, including the innovation of the most successful TV in history; and has educated over 100,000 leaders—from organisations like Nike, Intel, Zalando, Unilever, HSBC, NHS, LEGO, and Google – harnessing his comprehensive Cell to System™ curriculum for transformational leadership.

Jankel has a Triple First (summa cum laude) in Medicine and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge and has taught at Yale, LBS, and Oxford.

He was selected as a UK Ambassador for Entrepreneurship and a transformational coach on his global BBC TV show.

He has advised No.10 Downing Street and other governments; has spoken in the House of Commons, and co-founded transformation consultancy Switch On and fast-growing sustainability practice, FutureMakers.

As a genuine thought leader and polymath, Nick’s work has been to unfold Bio-Transformation Theory & Practice®, a rigorous brain-based system unlocking transformation in individuals, teams, organizations, and systems as fast as humanly possible.

BTTP® is woven together from the latest neuroscience, complexity theory, and psychological research reunited with wisdom from great traditions. As well as leveraging BTTP in all his world-class innovation and leadership work, he has used this methodology to run systemic change programs for organisations like Oxfam and WWF – and to teach social entrepreneurs on 4 continents.

In his keynotes, Nick aims to eliminate confusion as a futurist with clarity, take the pain out of business/digital/sustainable transformation; blast through the barriers that block innovation; and transform the challenges of cross-functional teams by unlocking agility and safety.

As a trained scientist, Nick uses the latest biology and “neuroleadership” insights to influence audiences to change and transform. This allows him to fully engage sophisticated and “seen-it-all” before executives and persuade highly intelligent professionals such as engineers, educators, clinicians, scientists, technologists, lawyers, and accountants.

Nick brings to life his big thinking using brain science, sticky ideas, compelling narratives, paradigm-shifting insights, beautiful imagery, takeaway transformation tools, and his powerful presence on stage (virtual or in-person).

Nick’s ideas help people cut through treacle, fear, overwhelm, and apathy; engage hearts and minds to transform individuals, teams, and systems; and seize unprecedented opportunities for world-changing innovations before others see them.

Nick is regularly interviewed on tech and innovation on international news; has been featured in the Financial Times, The Times, The Economist and over 100 podcasts; and helped innovate the most successful TV show ever.

He is the author of a number of well-reviewed books on creativity, leadership and transformation, including Now Lead The Change: Repurpose Your Career, Future-Proof Your Organization, and Regenerate Our Crisis-Hit World By Mastering Transformational Leadership (2020).

“An excellent presentation, very thought-provoking and exactly what we wanted. Nice links to our various businesses too.”
Direct Line Group

Nick Jankel Keynote Speaker:

Each speech Nick delivers contains cutting-edge science, enlightening insights and real-life stories from the front lines of breakthroughs. His presentations inspire, engage and wow his audiences.

He customises every talk and offers experiential exercises and powerful takeaway tools.

Speaking topics include:

• Culture Change & Transformation
• Transformative Leadership (in the VUCA world)
• Digital Transformation and Corporate Culture Change
• Agility, Adaptability and High-Performance Teams
• Influential Leadership, Persuasion and Story Telling
• Systemic Leadership and Futuring
• The Future Of Healthcare & HealthTech
• Creative Leadership and Transformation
• Collaborate Leadership and Dynamic Teams
• Millennials
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Collaboration & Co-Creativity
• The Future of Work
• The Future of Cities / Health / Education
• AI & Automation
• IoT and the Networked Age
• Take Charge of Change
• Unlock Uncertainty
• Glimpse of the Future Today
• Break Through Complexity

Popular Speech titles:

Future-Proof Your Org With Transformational Innovation

• Covid and the climate crisis are accelerators of massive market disruption.
• We can leverage new technologies to solve emerging customer needs/pain with insight and creativity.
• Transformational Innovation can help you adapt to this crisis and ‘preadapt’ to the next.
• The 7 steps of our proven pathway to lead and land transformational innovations.
• Process is not enough—you also need to nurture a culture of innovation.
• Takeaway Tool Options: The Innovation Culture Engine, The Experimentation Engine, The Problem Definition Engine etc.

Transformational Leadership to Lead In VUCA Chaos, Crisis & Challenge

• Today’s complex problems can only be solved with a combination of a smart mind and an empathic heart.
• Why being the smartest room is no longer enough – or even desirable. The Transformational Leader is a master at both wisdom and intellect so they can drive business transformation and social regeneration.
• The 5 Stages of Becoming a Transformational Leader.
• Takeaway Tool Options: The Transformational Leadership Diagnostic, The Personal Leadership Plan.

Sustainable Innovation: From Compliance To Creativity & Exponential Value-Creation

• Solve customer pain points driven by social and ecological breakdown to unlock exponential value.
• Move from footprint minimization driven by regulation to opening up exciting possibilities spaces and business opportunities.
• Turn zero-carbon/decarbonization into a ‘prism’ to drive exponential value-creation in products and services.

Sustainable Leadership: How To Lead The Change

• Turn despair into hope by understanding business and institutional leaders’ power to lead the change so many want to see.
• Skip the outdated power politics that are causing so much delay to craft brands and business models that are net-positive/ “regenerative”.
• Inspire leaders with nature and “rewild” leadership purpose.
• Use your one short life to leave a sustainable legacy.
• Use your organization’s power to leave the world better.

Sustainability Storytelling: Engaging Stakeholders With Compelling Narratives That Transform

• Even if we want to lead the shift to a sustainable world, many stakeholders don’t get it, don’t want to get it, or don’t know how to get it.
• Many may say they want to be sustainable but resist, deny, ignore, or are cynical about the urgency and magnitude of the climate crisis (and other issues like inequality, precarity, and pollution).
• Neuroscience shows that it’s no use yelling at people, criticizing them, or showing them yet more data – this usually triggers the Backfire Effect.
• Instead, harness my transformational storytelling insights and toolkit to engage to different kinds of stakeholders in empathic and imaginative ways—and turn resistors into supporters and supporters into champions.

Business Purpose For Sustainable Growth

• The different kinds of purpose: business, project/team, individual.
• The potential roles for business in a crisis-hit world.
• What purpose is not (a mission, goal, KPI) and what it is (a compelling contribution to society).
• The purpose dividend (value in terms of investor interest, profit, traction, consumer loyalty, employee retention etc) vs. the purpose premium (cost in terms of doing things differently).
• Using purpose as a tool for leadership alignment, culture change, and team engagement.
• Takeaway Tool Options: The Leadership Purpose Engine, The Business Purpose Engine, The Team Purpose Engine.

Regenerative Tech: Making Digital Work For All

• The spectrum of digital technologies in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
• What major technologies—from AI to Blockchain—can do to create value for your users.
• How to avoid using digital technologies just because they are new and because they can manipulate, alienate, and exploit.
• Ensuring tech develops new business models not shoring up rapidly out-dating models.
• With purpose and an understanding of living systems, we can put technology to work scale impact as well as profit and ‘leave the world better’.
• Takeaway Tool Options: The Regenerative Tech Engine

Forging The Future Of Work

• Social distancing and home working can further corrode the ‘working alliance’ (as are technologies and management techniques that alienate and disconnect).
• How to forge a renewed working alliance by balancing accountability and efficiency technologies… with connection and care techniques.
• How to borrow from the design principles of nature to nurture life-affirming dynamics in company cultures, ensuring humans will never made obsolete by machines and AI.
• Takeaway Tool Options: The Regenerative Business Engine, The Transformational Organization Engine.

Become A Transformational Organization: Design For Agility Without Losing Stability

• There is a survival necessity to allow those on the frontlines to adapt and innovate in real time with users/customers… without losing strategy, predictable returns, and efficiency.
• There is also a generational demand for flatter hierarchies and more distributed power.
• Empowerment alone does not work to unlock agility after years of learned helplessness. But there is way of designing organizations for transformation that blends stability & agility; productivity & purpose; and control & creativity.
• Takeaway Tool Options: The Transformational Organization Engine.