David Rowan
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Creativity & Innovation
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Future & Society
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Growth
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Host & Moderator
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New Technology
David Rowan is today’s leading speaker on how emerging technologies will impact business — and how leaders should prepare now. He’s given 900 keynotes around the world, and has moderated events for the World Economic Forum, WIRED, the top global companies, and governments.
As founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine in the UK, David came to know the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Didi, Spotify, Twitter and countless other ambitious startups from Tel Aviv to Shenzhen. His best-selling book, “Non-Bullshit Innovation: 17 Proven Ways To Transform How You Work” (Penguin), is a 20-country quest to identify genuine innovation in the face of tech-led disruption. It sets out 17 proven strategies for future-proofing a business, from “Turn products into services” to “Build an ecosystem”.
David spends his time at tech’s cutting edge: visiting university research labs and startup clusters to meet the people building the future. He’s invested in 180 early-stage tech companies, including 12 that became billion-dollar “unicorns”, and runs venture funds that invest in health-tech and climate-tech. He’s working on a book on how business leaders use culture to attract and motivate exceptional talent, at a time when AI risks commodifying entire sectors.
David has been a technology columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times, and at WIRED he built a conference and a consulting business. And he is still searching for the future.
David will customise a talk for your meeting, or will moderate your event in his accessible journalistic style. He deconstructs tech trends in real time, unpacking how innovations like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and more are changing businesses and consumers. He delivers lively and inspiring presentations, using concrete examples from the frontiers of tech and engaging clips which reveal that in some cases the future is already here. He’s typically asked to speak about how innovation and technology are likely to impact a particular sector (from manufacturing to motoring), and what incumbent companies can do now. In recent months he has addressed audiences in finance, luxury fashion, utilities, television, insurance, shipping, travel, real estate and business software. He also speaks a lot about changing business models, and how companies can develop a culture of innovation.
His recent themes include:
- How to transform your strategy to make the most of the AI revolution
- How to think about human talent in the AI era
- What exponential technologies mean for the next five years in retail/real estate/finance/media/healthcare, etc
- What a 20-country quest taught me about building a true culture of innovation
- What AI agents tell us about the future of the workplace
- Why culture is the true business differentiator in a world of AI
- What talent wants in the new world of work
Testimonials for David Rowan:
“The team was blown away and they are a hard group to impress.”
“Truly inspirational.”
–Warner Bros
“Fascinating.”
–Goldman Sachs
“David Rowan was awesome.”
–Salesforce
“Magnificent.”
–Sky
“Just perfect.”
–Temasek
“You set the tone for the day perfectly, engaging the audience and steering the presenters through a very full agenda. The feedback from the day has been overwhelmingly positive, which is largely due to your dynamism, good humour and professionalism.”
–David Cameron, G8 Innovation Conference
“A stellar moderator – insightful and challenging to the speakers, witty and engaging for the audience, and very positive to work with.”
–World Economic Forum
“Your contribution at the event was terrific. The content was highly relevant & extremely interesting. Your talk received the highest audience review on the feedback application. The level of your professionalism is unrivalled.”
–Mercer, Hong Kong
“It went brilliantly: an excellent presentation. A great success!” –Sky Betting
“Insightful, thought-provoking and energizing.”
–Marubeni Corporation
“We had brilliant feedback.”
— Small Luxury Hotels
“Your opening talk was just fabulous. The feedback on your talk has been extremely positive.”
–PopTech
“A HUUUUGE thank you as always for being the one we trust to make any conversation bright, enlightening, energetic, thoughtful and insightful — always so, so grateful.” –Founders Forum NY
“David was fantastic. The content was perfect. The talk was fast paced, interesting, relevant and accessible. It set up the innovation session of our agenda really well and I was delighted with the result.”
–Sky
“Thank you so much for an excellent session. You left the team in no doubt about the risks of disruptive factors and how they can impact any industry. Ours more than any is wide open here. Totally the right way to end the conference.”
–JP Morgan
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