Greg McKeown
- Best-Selling Author, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
- Innovative Strategist and High-Performance Expert
- CEO, THIS Inc. and
Travels From
California
Greg McKeown Speaker Biography
Greg McKeown has dedicated his career to discovering why some people break through to the next level—and others don’t.
The definitive treatment of this issue is addressed in McKeown’s latest project: the instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. As well as frequently being the #1 Time Management book on Amazon, this book challenges core assumptions about achievement to get to the essence of what really drives success.
McKeown is the CEO of THIS Inc, a company whose mission is to assist people and companies to spend 80 percent of their time on the vital few rather than the trivial many. Clients include Adobe, Apple, Google, Facebook, Pixar, Salesforce.com, Symantec, Twitter, VMware and Yahoo!.
His writing has appeared or been covered by Fast Company, Fortune, HuffPost, Politico, and Inc. Magazine. He is among the most popular bloggers for the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn’s Influencers group: averaging a million views a month.
McKeown has been interviewed on numerous television and radio shows including NPR’s All Things Considered and NBC’s Press: Here. Entrepreneur Magazine voted his interview at Stanford University the #1 Must-See Video on Business, Creativity and Success.
More About Speaker, Greg McKeown…
McKeown is an accomplished public speaker. He has spoken to hundreds of audiences around the world including in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, England, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Singapore.
Highlights in 2014 include speaking at SXSW, interviewing Al Gore at the Annual Conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland and receiving a personal invitation from Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, to speak to his Annual Innovation Conference.
McKeown challenges conventional wisdom in a unique and engaging style from the first moment to the last instant. As the event organizer at Greater Public said after McKeown addressed their 1,000-person conference, “I have been part of this event for 16 years and McKeown is the best speaker we have ever had!”
McKeown is an active Social Innovator. Serving as a Board Member for Washington D.C. policy group Resolve (KONY 2012) and as a mentor with 2 Seeds, a non-profit incubator for agricultural projects in Africa. He has also been a speaker at non-profit groups including The Kauffman Fellows, Net Impact and Stanford University: he recently gave back to Stanford University by co-creating a popular class called, Designing Life, Essentially.
He serves as a Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum. He recently moderated a session at the “Summer Davos” in China called, “Unpacking Social Innovation Models for Maximum Impact”, served as a panelist at the “Sharpening Your Creative Edge” working session at the Forum.
Prior to this, McKeown collaborated in the research and writing of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter and worked for Heidrick & Struggles’ Global Leadership Practice assessing senior executives.
Originally from London, England, McKeown now lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and their four children. He graduated with an MBA from Stanford University.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Here are three questions to ask in order to see if this keynote is relevant in your organization. Have you or the people
in your organization:
• Ever been stretched too thin?
• Sometimes feel busy but not productive?
• Ever had your day hijacked by someone else’s agenda?
Yes to any of these? This keynote will be a home run at your next event. The reason for this is that Greg McKeown
offers a way of thinking for discerning what is essential, eliminating what is not, and removing obstacles in order to
make execution as effortless as possible. Essentialism isn’t about getting more things done, it’s about getting the
right things done.
Greg’s distinctive style of speaking sets him apart from other polished speakers. He spurns an avalanche of slides
in favor of having a conversation with participants. The interactive experience is entertaining and engaging from
the first moment to the last instant. As one event organizer put it, “This is the most engaging keynote that I have
ever attended!”
Leadership Essentials
In this keynote, Greg McKeown demonstrates why leading as an essentialist is critical for taking teams to the next level and produce breakthroughs in results and innovation. He teaches five principles, providing examples on how teams and companies can be killed by their own success—and what to do instead. Using evocative stories, hard questions and thought-provoking exercises, this keynote is designed to be interactive and interesting from beginning to end.
Why Warm Clarity is the Key to High Performance Teams
We have all worked for leaders who are focused on results but care little about the overall growth and development of each team member: this is cold clarity. Warm clarity is different: it combines courage and compassion to create high performance teams.
Why Some Teams Break Through to the Next Level - And Others Don't
This keynote shares five ways teams become dysfunctional and how leading as an Essentialist is the key to combating these and, instead, creating unified teams that produce amazing results.
The Other Half of Innovation
The first half of innovation is fun and easy: it’s brainstorming, Post-It notes, exploration, iteration and ideation. The second half is rarer but it’s where the breakthrough value lies. This keynote teaches how to select only the most valuable ideas and how to execute them effortlessly.
Becoming Successful at Success
Becoming successful is one thing but it’s another thing altogether to become successful at success. This keynote teaches the essential mindset and skillset needed to go from being successful to very successful—the answers will surprise.
