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Nada Sanders
Global Business Futurist, Supply Chain Authority & AI Expert
Nada Sanders
Global Business Futurist, Supply Chain Authority & AI Expert
Biography
Dr. Nada Sanders is an internationally recognized thought leader and expert in forecasting, global supply chains, risk management and human-technology integration. She is a Distinguished Professor, Supply Chain Management, at Northeastern University. Her expertise is identifying best practices in forecasting, developing an enterprise technology strategy, digital transformation and creating resilient supply chains.
Dr. Sanders now predicts a “new normal” economic environment filled with crises and the need for organizations to quickly become more resilient—and tells companies how to do this. She knows exactly what companies need to navigate past the hype to adopt AI to achieve business goals. Leveraging experience with a range of industries (retail, CPG, pharma, medical supplies, high tech, agriculture, food and more), Dr. Sanders is a frequent keynote speaker and tailors her presentations to address client focus and unique concerns.
Throughout her career, Dr. Sanders has successfully held a range of leadership roles in both academic and professional organizations, is an award winning teacher and scholar and has served on numerous executive boards. She has consulted with numerous Fortune 100 companies and leading organizations, including Amazon, Dell, Kinaxis, Lego and many others.
The originator of the term “Coronavirus Downturn,” she has been a regular contributor to numerous news outlets, including CNN, BBC, CNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, Fortune, Fast Company and The Boston Globe. She has also been published in every influential source of intelligence for today’s corporate directors — predicting economic and business outcomes — and leading scholarly journals, including Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Production and Operations Management Journal and Journal of Operations Management.
Dr. Sanders is the author of seven books, including the multi-award-winning The Humachine: Humankind, Machines, and the Future of Enterprise, and was ranked as the World's Top 2% of Scientists in a 2020 Stanford Study.
In 2022, she was awarded the prestigious Robert D. Klein Lecturer Award by Northeastern University. She is a Fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute and is a member of the Board of Economic Advisors of the Association of Industries of Massachusetts. She has served on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters, Decision Sciences Institute, and has served as President of the Production Operations Management Society (POMS). In 2020, POMS created an award in her name and in 2023, she was given the prestigious POMS Sushil K. Gupta Distinguished POMS Service Award.
Speaker Videos
Introducing Nada Sanders
It's Just Good Business
Sizzle Reel Nada Sanders
After Words with Peter Goodman C SPAN
Hedging Against the Big Three | CNBC
The Key is Relationship Building
Companies are Making This BIG Mistake
Connecting with Business Partners through HUMAN SKILLS
The PEOPLE Element
Do We Trust Humans or AI to Make Decisions?
Why Did Global Supply Chain Fail?
COVID-19 Resilience Talk: Supply Chain Disruption in the Pharmaceuticals Industry
The New Normal
Virtual Keynote: The Role of Humans in the Implementation of AI
Speech Topics
How to Build Resilient Supply Chains: Four Strategies that Work
What will the future look like and how do we prepare? Every business is looking for strategies to build resilience in light of a turbulent future. Dr. Nada Sanders offers four key strategic elements every company should use to redesign their organizations and supply chains. A fascinating look at threats to global trends impacting global supply chains - from geopolitics, climate disruptions, economic threats, and pandemics – and how organizations can build resilience to withstand these shocks and volatility.
“Humachine”: The Future of Enterprise
The “Humachine” is the enterprise of the future – and the future is here. It is an enterprise that thrives in the age of AI by combining the unique talents of people (creativity and innovation), with the mechanical efficiencies of machines (economies of scale, big data processing, and artificial intelligence). Machines and humans are coworkers – working side by side — leveraging their unique strengths in a symbiotic relationship.
Leading companies are already exhibiting Humachine traits and enterprises need to evolve or they will perish. Dr. Sanders’ research uncovers that Humachine traits actually focus less on technology and more on human talent. In fact, the single differentiator of technological enterprise success lies in having the right human resource qualities at all levels – leaders, managers, doers. It also requires having the right organizational culture. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the best way to take advantage of AI is for enterprises to invest more in their human resources – in reskilling, upskilling and lifelong learning.
With invaluable insights for business and industry, Dr. Sanders draws upon her award winning book The Humachine (2nd ed 2024 Routledge), unveils what the future of enterprise will look like, and offers a roadmap for every organization to follow to prepare for this tectonic shift in the competitive landscape.
The Skills Your Employees Need to Work Effectively with AI
What are the skills you and your employees need to succeed in the age of AI? Based on the award winning Harvard Business Review article (“The Skills Your Employees Need to Work Effectively with AI”, HBR, 2023) this talk presents exactly what organizations and all employees need to do to be ready. The key opportunity for every enterprise in 2024 will be to prepare their organization and people for the age of AI. This talk tells every organization what to do and how to do it. Jobs are being redefined as a collection of skills and tasks, not titles- and the skills everyone has to invest in to make the best decisions with AI are not what you think. This engaging talk tells business leaders exactly what to do to prepare – and some of it may surprise you. You will walk away knowing exactly what to do to get ready to work with AI and prepare your workforce for the future.
Five Principles for Using AI Every Business Needs
Nada Sanders has developed 5 principles with corporate examples. Every business needs them to implement AI successfully. They are 1. Augmentation, 2. Concurrency, 3. Fusion, 4. Democratization and 5. Explainability. She explains each principle, offers corporate examples, and discusses how to implement them.
The State of Global Supply Chains: Now & Beyond
The pandemic has shown the world how vulnerable our supply chains are, creating unprecedented disruptions across all industry sectors. We have seen business interruptions, stockouts and shortages that have put entire economies at risk. In this essential talk, Dr. Nada Sanders, the foremost authority on helping companies rebuild their supply chains, offers specific strategies companies should be taking now and into the future. She also covers what leaders should examine when assessing supply chain risk and resiliency, using her proprietary supplier risk index. Leveraging experience with a range of industries (pharma, medical supply, retail, high tech, agriculture, food and more), Dr. Sanders tailors her presentations to address audience focus and concerns.
How Covid Killed Supply Chains
A post-mortem evaluation of how the pandemic, corporate and government response, destroyed supply chains all over the world. This engaging talk shows what went wrong, how business interruption and stockouts in key resource shortages put entire economies at risk and offers specific strategies for corporate leaders to be prepared for the future. By understanding how supply chains failed we can be better prepared to handle catastrophic risk in the future.
Disruption is the "New Normal": Is Your Organization Ready?
As the world’s leading authority on forecasting and global supply chain management, Dr. Nada Sanders has become the go-to expert on predicting economic trends and helping companies prepare for the future. The originator of the term “Coronavirus Downturn,” she has been interviewed by numerous news outlets, including CNN, BBC, the New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, Fortune, The Boston Globe and virtually every influential source of intelligence for today’s corporate directors, predicting economic and business outcomes. Dr. Sanders now predicts a ‘new normal’ economic environment filled with crises and the need for organizations to quickly become more resilient.
In this comprehensive talk, which can be tailored to the concerns of specific audiences, Dr. Sanders provides a worldwide assessment of new normal global environment —with riveting forecasts of what’s likely to come and how companies should prepare.
Dr. Sanders explains what companies did wrong pre-pandemic, specific lessons that can be learned and not repeated, and how to use this knowledge to become more resilient as an enterprise for the future that is coming.
She cautions that the future will not look like the past and she discusses specific strategies companies should use to prepare. “This will require reimagining business strategy, building resilience into supply chains, and being ready to pivot.” In this keynote talk, she explains to business leaders exactly what they need to do now to prepare.
This is the Human Era
Forget your fears about the rise of AI, robotics, blockchains, IoT and other technologies “botsourcing” our jobs. Instead, get ready for a golden age when humans are empowered to flourish, emotional connections are paramount and authenticity is essential. According to futurist, AI expert and business professor Dr. Nada Sanders, we are at the dawn of the Human Era. In the Human Era, machines are just tools doing automated, repetitive, and standardized tasks. Uniquely human qualities such as creativity, innovation, adaptability, empathy, integrity, and imagination will not only rule the day, but be heightened by technology. Afterall, machines will never fix bad processes, poor management practices, or failing employee morale. Innovation, strategy and connections with co-workers and customers will never be taken over by machines. Dr Sanders. provides an illuminating look ahead at a people-focused future in which humans and uniquely human qualities continue to advance our enterprises, society and economy.
The Future of Work
Technology is changing every aspect of how we work. Robots are quickly becoming our new co-workers and many jobs are being ‘botsourced’ – with human jobs now being done by machines. However, the future is actually exciting for humans. There are so many human skills that machines will not be able to acquire. There are also many new jobs being created that we would never have imagined in the past.
In this cutting-edge presentation, Dr. Nada Sanders helps you get ready. She forecasts what the future of work will really look like, including:
- Key trends that will shape work in the coming decade.
- What everyone in the workforce needs to do to prepare
- How to “robot-proof” their career--from lifelong learning to developing key human literacies
- The human advantage in the technology era, such as creative problem solving, critical thinking, communication, teamwork, systems and entrepreneurial thinking, and developing their emotional intelligence
Leadership in the Digital Age
The digital era requires all enterprises to evolve or they will perish – and this rests on the shoulders of leadership. Leadership in the digital age requires a different set of skills than in the analog age. Dr. Nada Sanders’ research finds the key to enterprise success in the digital age rests on the right human qualities and the right organizational culture. It also finds that many executives are still taking either a “wait and see approach” to technology or seeing it as a “plug and play” solution. According to Dr. Sanders, neither are going to work. Leading an enterprise in the digital age requires understanding the seismic shift occurring in the competitive landscape.
Dr. Sanders examines:
- The importance of a vision beyond profits that everyone can rally around
- Selecting and nurturing the right talent—and its critical role
- Championing a culture of innovation, entrepreneurship and empowering others
- Creating a fluid and flexible organizational structure
The Inter-AI Period
A small window of opportunity to shape how we use AI. Once norms and uses are established it will be hard to reverse course. The time for leaders to act is now.
Getting Extraordinary Results From Ordinary Humans & Ordinary Technology: The Triumph of Process (Kasparov's Law)
Kasparov's Law documents that ordinary humans using ordinary technology can produce extraordinary results if they are combined with the right process. In fact, their results are superior to extraordinary humans and superior technology. But how do companies get the right process? In this talk Dr. Nada Sanders explains the triumph of process and how companies can create the right integration with the technology and talent they have to achieve extraordinary results.
Testimonials
Books & Media
Books
The Humachine: Humankind, Machines, and the Future of Enterprise
Supply Chain Management: A Global Perspective
Foundations of Sustainable Business: Theory, Function, and Strategy
Media
Holiday shoppers urged to start early as some store shelves already empty
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