Lisa Bodell

CEO, FutureThink & Bestselling Author, Why Simple Wins

Lisa Bodell

CEO, FutureThink & Bestselling Author, Why Simple Wins

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Biography

“Complexity is crippling our organizations. It’s stifling our people and keeping them from doing their most meaningful and impactful work.” Lisa Bodell, a global leader on simplification, collaboration, and innovation, has a solution. Lisa shows organizations how to eliminate complexity and leverage simplicity – unleashing creativity and sparking the energy so essential to innovate and compete in a rapidly changing world. FutureThink, which she founded in 2003, works with leading brands worldwide and has become the largest source of innovation research, tools, and training in the world. Lisa is the author of two groundbreaking books, Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters and Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution. She ranks on the list of Top 50 Speakers Worldwide and captivates audiences with her energy and humor. Lisa’s keynotes leave audiences inspired to change and arms them with radically simple tools to get to the work that matters.

After earning her business degree from University of Michigan, Lisa launched her career at Leo Burnett in Chicago, where she discovered a gift for uniting strategically-driven ideas with forward-thinking themes. She went on to build two successful businesses before moving to New York and focusing on the simplification and innovation space with FutureThink.

Lisa brings a compelling perspective to the sought-after topics of simplification and innovation to over 100,000 people each year. A thought leader and serial entrepreneur, her transformational message has inspired executives at top-ranked organizations such as Google, SAP, Citigroup, and the Department of National Intelligence.

Lisa has contributed her expertise to a wide variety of media. She is a monthly contributor to Forbes and has frequently appeared in other media including Fast Company, WIRED, The New York Times, Inc., Harvard Business Review, and CNN.

She has also been featured in many major books such as Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question, Adam Grant’s Originals, and AfterShock, the 50-year celebration based on futurist Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock.

Lisa has taught innovation at both American University and Fordham University and has a TED talk on the topic. She has served on the board of advisors of several organizations, including the Global Agenda Council for the World Economic Forum, the United States National Security Agency, the Association of Professional Futurists, and the Novartis board of Diversity & Inclusion.

Speaker Videos

Highlight Reel

Unleashing Innovation

Leading Simplicity A Roadmap

Killing Complexity, Why Simple Wins

How Complexity Happens

Interactive Poling Example

Being Organized is Not Being Simplified

Prioritize Action Step

Google Presentation: Kill the Company

Eliminating Complexity

Killing Complexity

PcMA Presentation: Create Space for Change & Innovation

Society for Human Resource Management: Thinking Has Become a Daring Act

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Speech Topics

Killing Complexity – Why Simple Wins

Complexity is crippling our organizations. Unproductive meetings, irrelevant rules and reports, and endless emails keep people from doing the work that matters most. Worse, complexity dampens morale and creates feelings of futility. It doesn’t have to be this way. CEO and TED-talk veteran Lisa Bodell shows organizations how to unleash the energy, collaboration, innovation, and engagement lying in wait by embracing a mindset of simplification right now.

This spirited presentation shows how small changes can have a profound impact on the organization’s people, competitiveness, and ability to adapt. Lisa offers techniques used by the nimblest of companies to save time, kill rules, and simplify everything. Drawing on research from her book, Why Simple Wins, Lisa’s energy, engaging stories, and interactive exercises prove that using simplicity as an operating principle is the surest path to organizational transformation.

You will learn:

How simplification sparks action and enables groups to move faster with more focus than everyone else.
Why simplification is not just a method but a mindset and a habit – a key to resilience and adaptability.
How to create a workplace where there’s more time to innovate and think.
How asking questions helps eliminate organizational and individual busywork that’s outlived its time.
Web-based real-time interactive exercises reveal what’s holding people back from embracing simplification.
How killing complexity increases trust, engagement, talent retention, and helps people be their best.

Leading Simplicity – A Roadmap

Embracing simplicity as an operational mindset can unleash the power of people to be their best and focus on work that really matters. But simplicity needs an advocate and leaders who step up to send a message that simplicity is a priority that will reap outsized results. In this presentation, Lisa Bodell delivers real world tools leaders can use to create a culture with simplicity in its DNA and a bias for action.

Lisa, author of the bestseller Why Simple Wins, unpacks stories and insights leaders can use to inspire their people, ignite disruptive thinking, build agility, and turn problems into possibilities. With energy, humor, and revealing online interactive exercises, Lisa shows that simplicity is the catalyst that accelerates innovation, collaboration, engagement, and growth. Simplicity will create a sustainable competitive advantage because it’s the absolute foundation of resilience in the face of never-ending change.

You will learn:

How to cultivate a dynamic culture of simplification that makes challenging outdated practices the norm, creating space for more innovation to happen.
Drive an agenda that makes simplification a seamless part of your operating system, placing equal importance on eliminating work as adding it, fostering a more balanced approach.
Align teams in identifying and eliminating time-wasting habits, allowing them to reach their goals more quickly.
Set the groundwork for enduring change and improved problem-solving by reducing stress and giving teams the space to think.
Create a strategic advantage by better focusing teams, driving proactive change, retaining talent effortlessly, and outpacing the competition with increased agility.
Online interactive exercises reveal what’s holding your organization back from embracing a mindset of simplicity.

Unleashing Innovation

If your organization is not innovating as fast as you’d like, it’s time to address it – before it’s too late. In most organizations, the very structures put in place to help them grow all too often hold them back. If you want people to approach change differently, you have to help them change their approach. In this presentation, Lisa Bodell delivers a high energy and inspiring call to arms to start a revolution in how we think and how we work.

Lisa is founder and CEO of FutureThink, the largest source of innovation research, tools, and training in the world. Her insights help increase the capacity for innovation by shifting mindset and engaging everyone in the process of killing off the status quo. In this presentation, Lisa inspires people to think differently and provides the tools to solve problems that stand in the way of breakthrough innovation in your organization.

You will learn:

How our current organizational values and structures, designed to help innovation take hold, often hold it back – and how to change that.
How to unleash the dormant potential in teams by reigniting critical aptitudes such as curiosity, inquiry, and creative problem-solving.
Practical yet provocative techniques for reinvention and innovation with current products and services.
Proven methods that reignite change and transformation and make everyone a change agent.
Examples of how even the smallest changes can have big impact.
What’s holding your organization back from innovating through the use of online interactive exercises.

Testimonials

"You rocked it! One of the best conversations of the conference"

- SAP

"Thank you for a masterful presentation today. Everyone LOVED it. Your presence on stage was fantastic even with a virtual audience."

- Dynata

"Lisa Bodell was the absolute perfect closing keynote for my company’s annual conference which was being hosted virtually for the first time in its 30+ year history. She is a natural on-camera, which is super challenging to pull off in a virtual environment. Lisa did a great job delivering an interactive program that kept the audience engaged from start to finish."

- P&I

"We anticipated such a great experience for the team and well, it was just much better than that!"

- Fidelity

"Lisa Bodell is a first-class change agent in the corporate world. She points out the often obvious, but totally ingrained, things that are stifling our companies, then goes on to share her plan for how we can start our own ‘innovation revolution.'"

- Author of MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

"Lisa captivated the audience with insightful and well-articulated thoughts about technologies and trends that could transform our industry. Her examples were credible, thought provoking, and, in a very short time, she energized people to be more proactive about shaping our future business environment."

- Vice President for Worldwide Innovation, Pfizer

"Lisa is one of the most outstanding presenters I have ever seen. She passionately delivers articulate messages that engage the audience and encourage action on the part of the listener. Something tells me that many of her insights will become essential elements of our culture."

- CEO, NYSE Euronext

"Over the years, I’ve tried many innovation ‘gurus’ to educate my leadership team. Lisa is the real thing – she’s an expert that also knows how to use both presentation and learning principles to hold an audience’s attention."

- Director of Learning & Development, Bausch & Lomb

"Lisa’s presentations have transformed the way our leaders think of innovation. Lisa provides a mix of practical, easy-to-use tools and inspiration which has helped to create a new mindset around how to innovate in all parts of our company."

- Merck

"Lisa’s presentation was the absolute favorite of our 3– day offsite! I now have a totally new way of looking at simplification and innovation. I would recommend her and her team to anyone planning an event in a heartbeat."

- Delta Airlines

"Lisa is everything you look for in a keynote speaker – she’s insightful, engaging, and energetic. She was the top-rated speaker at our Google events and inspired the entire audience to start a simplification revolution."

- Google

"Lisa made my leadership team think in new ways and helped us develop winning business ideas right in the room. My team now embraces innovation rather than fearing it."

- Managing Director, Citigroup Corporate Investment Bank

"Lisa's message around change and simplification is incredibly relevant and compelling. Her talk is thought-provoking, challenging, and necessary given today's complex and ever-changing business environment."

- Accenture

“Lisa blew us away. Inspiring and practical. People were up off their feet, laughing and thinking. Cell phones were constantly going up to take pictures of her presentation. She exceeded all expectations.”

- Chief Learning Officer at AXA Equitable

“Over the years, I’ve tried many ‘gurus’ to educate our leaders. Lisa is the real thing – she’s inspiring, motivating, practical, and memorable. She ignites the possibility with the audience. She was the top-rated speaker at our executive events.”

- AT&T

"Lisa made my leadership team think in new ways and helped us develop winning business ideas right in the room. My team now embraces change and innovation rather than fearing it."

- Citi

"Thought-provoking, challenging, and inspiring. She has the uncanny ability to relate high–level, dense subject matter to the everyday."

- Kraft

"LISA IS THE BEST SPEAKER EVER. High energy, FUNNY, and super engaging with a hybrid audience in person and online. We loved her message."

- Dell

"Lisa is one of the most outstanding presenters I have ever seen. She passionately delivers well–articulated messages that engage the audience and encourage action. Her insights will become essential elements of our culture."

- NYSE Euronext

"Even virtually, Lisa delivers her message with passion, humor, and more importantly, simplicity. Her expertise on simplification and execution minimalism in the workplace was very evident, especially as it pertained to optimizing the overall employer-employee experience. Engaging and highly effective."

- EmpiRx Health

"Lisa blew us away. Inspiring and practical. People were up off their feet, laughing and thinking. Cell phones were constantly going up to take pictures of her presentation. She exceeded all expectations."

- Allstate

"I want to rewatch her keynote every Monday morning."

- Adobe