background

Kevin Freiberg Profile

  • Leadership expert, Dr. Kevin Freiberg shows companies proven strategies and techniques they can use to make their business stand out in a massive sea of competition.

  • Dr. Freiberg is the best-selling co-author of seven books, including NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, NANOVATION, and his latest work, CAUSE A Business Strategy for Standing Out In A Sea of Sameness.

  • Leadership Excellence magazine ranks Dr. Freiberg as one of the “Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership” due to the extensive demand among Fortune 1000 company executives for his insights and advice.
  • For over 27 years, leadership expert Dr. Kevin Freiberg has helped companies around the world break the barriers of business as usual and make valuable contributions to their industry and their customers’ quality of life. Kevin draws on his decades of research profiling some of the most innovative organizations and the leadership behind them to show your group how you too can be industry disrupters rather than disrupted.

    A New York best-selling author, Kevin’s research has reached an international audience of millions. One of his earliest books (coauthored with his wife, Jackie) NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success details the challenges and steps Southwest Airlines took to revolutionize the airline industry when its major competitors were all going in the other direction. Similarly NANOVATION, follows the underdog tale of how India’s Tata Motors invented the world’s most affordable as well as one of the most energy efficient cars ever seen, the Tata Nano. Kevin’s most recent collaboration with Jackie is CAUSE A Business Strategy for Standing Out In A Sea of Sameness, which shows how companies can improve their growth, employee engagement, and customer loyalty by building themselves around causes.

    Deemed one of the “Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership” by Leadership Excellence magazine, Kevin is also on a short list of experts that Fortune 1000 company executives turn to for driving creativity and motivation in their employees. His unrivaled knowledge on corporate culture and customer loyalty, combined with his energizing delivery style, propels organizations to push for forward thinking and cultivate the ability to shift change to their advantage.

    • View Extended/Alternate Bio

      Concrete Examples • Entertaining Stories • Incredible Energy.
      These are a few reasons why clients in every part of the world invite Kevin Freiberg to be their featured speaker. Dr. Freiberg is on a short list of global thought leaders that Fortune 1000 CEOs turn to for the kind of disruptive thinking that drives growth and gets people excited about the future.

      Regardless of how many speakers you’ve hired, you’ll be hard pressed to find a speaker who does as much customizing as Dr. Kevin Freiberg. If you want a keynote that truly speaks the language of your business and addresses the nuances of your industry, Kevin is the speaker to book. Over 2000 companies in 60 industries across the globe have given Kevin rave reviews. His insights have helped ambitious leaders accelerate innovation, and STAND OUT in a sea of sameness by building companies that are hungry for change.

      His books include: the international bestseller, NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, its sequel GUTS!, BOOM! (7-timeless choices for inspiring leadership and accountability). NANOVATION (a how to on innovation) and DO SOMETHING NOW and Be a PERSON OF IMPACT, two quick reads that will change your organization and your life. And most recently, CAUSE A Business Strategy for Standing Out In A Sea of Sameness. Companies that define themselves as cause-oriented stand out! They have better employee engagement, customer loyalty, stronger profitability and growth, all of which the Freibergs document in CAUSE!

      Kevin‘s clients span a wide range of industries and include:
      •KPMG •Humana •Kaiser Permanente • QVC •FedEx •National Fire Sprinkler Association •Vail Resorts •AARP •Wayne Automatic Fire Sprinklers •MGM Resorts •Microsoft •University of San Diego •CUNA •L’Oréal •Credit Union Association New York •Vail Resorts •Kraft •Bank of America •Honeywell •National Life •American Express •Unisys •AT&T •Beef USA •Sony •Tire Pros •Powder River Energy Corporation

      Other CREDENTIALS:
      Named one of the “Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership” by Leadership Excellence Magazine, Dr. Freiberg has appeared on CNBC, CBS Sunday Morning and the CBS Morning News for his views on the critical links between leadership, corporate culture, change, and innovation.

      He has also appeared on the television series Lessons in Excellence for CNBC India. His articles and interviews have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, India’s Economic Times, India’s Business Standard, India’s Financial Times and Capital Business & Finance Magazine of Dubai.

      Something Personal…
      Kevin’s interests include sprinting to keep up with his work-out-aholic wife, doing anything adventurous with their three incredible children, compelling conversations with friends over good wine, and a periodic mental lapse into skydiving. He grew up as a competitive snow skier and water skier. He never won a World Cup, but in both sports he’s skied with the best in the world. These gifted athletes taught him how to step through fear and adapt to ever-changing competitors, conditions, technologies and geographies. He has learned that if you take enough risks, eventually you will crash. But that’s how you grow. It’s also how you strengthen resilience and develop the ability to bounce back. Most of all, he’s learned that success is never final. He’s still chasing the best in the world, still learning and still getting better.

    Kevin Freiberg Speaking Videos

    Bring Kevin Freiberg to Speak Live at Your Event

    Image

    Check Speaker Availability

    Kevin Freiberg's Speech Descriptions

    Concrete examples, amazing energy, and entertaining anecdotes are just a few of the reasons clients all around the world should invite Kevin to make a difference in their groups’ lives. For decades now Kevin has helped executives and companies in over 60 different industries became recognized leaders in their marketplace through his highly sought original research and proven techniques for building innovative work cultures that drive companies to challenge the status quo and write the new rules for their industry.

    Bochy Ball! The Chemistry of Winning and Losing in Baseball, Business, and Life.

    Business leaders can draw from the insights and apply the wisdom that turned the failing San Francisco Giant's franchise into a $2B force, with 3 World Championship titles in 5 years.

    You do NOT have to be a baseball fan or sports addict to learn from Bochy Ball. You do have to be a person who wants to borrow from what great leadership looks like in the best and worst of times! How does that translate to today's business leaders?

    The Giant's success is based upon clubhouse culture, team chemistry, and a championship mindset, all things every business can gain from. Top CEO's understand that an intentional approach to company culture and a willingness to nurture a "champion's mindset" in each of their employees is vital to their organization's success. Whether you want to...

    • Reinforce a Major Initiative
    • Stretch People's Thinking
    • Build More Team Chemistry
    • Establish a Business Case for Change
    • Coach People to Perform at their Very Best, or
    • Inspire a Higher Level of Leadership

    You will get a highly customized keynote, that wraps countless lessons from Bochy Ball around your team’s performance goals and your meeting objectives.

    Innovate or Perish

    This presentation has received accolades from business leaders in companies all over the world—primarily because Kevin demystifies innovation and shows you how innovators THINK and what they DO.

    Keynote Takeaways: Kevin details how you can…

      • Create a culture where people aren’t afraid to question the unquestionable.
      • Encourage risk by rewarding intelligent failure.
      • Build unlikely partnerships that lead to ingenuity .

      • Continually load your pipelines with great ideas.
      • Challenge teams to use limitations as springboards to creativity.

    Change Do Something Now

    This presentation shows you what happens in companies that are passionate about growth. If you want to create a culture where people move with a sense of urgency and say “yes” to new ideas, new relationships, new business models, new products and new markets, this presentation is your kickstarter.

    Keynote Takeaways: Kevin details how you can …

      • Say NO to the “incumbent’s mentality” that leads to failure.
      • Lead change efforts that are opportunity-led not crisis-driven.
      • Say “yes” to NEXT practices not BEST practices to avoid being #2.

    CAUSE! Stand Out Through Purpose and Profit

    Now more than ever, consumers expect meaningful social impact. In the future, if you can’t demonstrate that you are legitimately doing something to make the world better you won’t be in business.

    Define your business as a cause and watch your people reach higher, move faster and own more—and, make brand fanatics of your customers.

    Keynote Takeaways: Kevin details how you can …

      • Inspire employees to come to work fully awake, fully engaged, and firing on all cylinders.
      • Give employees a chance to solve a problem that really matters.
      • Show how your products and services have social value and positive impact.
      • Invite Customers to buy BETTER VERSIONS of themselves.

    Leadership

    Kevin will unpack the character strengths of gutsy leaders and shows you how these strengths play out in some of the world’s most admired companies.

    Keynote Takeaways: Kevin details how you can …

      • Move the organization in bold, new directions to turn average into an exceptional.
      • Choose service over self-interest and become stewards of people’s potential.
      • Invite people to share ideas and create breakthroughs that challenge the status quo and accelerate innovation.

    What People are Saying about Seeing Kevin Speak

    Rating Entries

      “Thanks so much for making such a significant contribution to our new Experienced Hire Orientation Workshop. We certainly appreciated and valued how you simply became a part of our team. Your Keynote presentation was a critical piece and was right on target to the message and feeling we wanted the participants to depart on. Your presentation was informative as well as sincere and meaningful. We had clear expectations for this specific section of the workshop and you exceeded them!!”

      John G. Blumberg
      Firmwide Recruiting, Arthur Andersen & Co., SC

      “Thanks again for another outstanding presentation. I have worked with many speakers and cannot think of one that I have enjoyed listening to more. You were certainly the right choice for our closing keynote speaker.

      Kevin, your command of the audience and ability to convey an important message is exceptional. That added with your professionalism explains why you received 10+ on our evaluations.”

      Betty L. Okicich
      Manager, Travel & Convention Services, Associated Grocers, Inc.

    Have You Seen this Speaker? Leave a Star Rating.

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


    Books by Kevin Freiberg:

    CAUSE! A Business Strategy for Standing Out in the Sea of Sameness
    These days everyone is increasingly concerned about people, planet and profit, if your company isn’t tied to a heroic cause, your business may be doomed.

    Companies that define themselves as cause-oriented stand out! They have better employee engagement, customer loyalty, and ultimately, stronger profitability and growth, all of which the Freibergs document in their new book CAUSE!.

    CAUSE! documents a fresh approach to leadership and collaboration that drives business success in companies as diverse as TOMS Shoes, Lululemon, Virgin, Southwest Airlines and PepsiCo. But CAUSE! highlights Vermont-based financial services firm National Life Group. The Freibergs take an in-depth look at how National Life built its culture around a clear purpose – its cause – and that sets it apart in a sea of sameness.



    Be A Person of Impact

    To everyone in search of more… This book is your unapologetic kick in the butt, it is a reminder that you are a POI—Person of Impact and you have a pocket of influence.

    You have been designed to choose and you will be defined by your choices. Your future is in your hands. You can reimagine, rethink, refresh, and even completely reengineer your brand. Why? Because you choose to.

    The 12 POI strategies in this book will help pave the way for you to start making intentional choices to step out of the mundane, lead, and stand out to be your best—one choice at a time.



    Do Something Now
    DSN – Do Something Now! Three simple letters. Three simple words that could change your organization—change your life. The scarcest resource in organizations right now is not money or talent or ideas or power; it’s people who DO, people who add value and get things done. This book will inspire Dreamers to become Doers. Everyone wants to add value and this book shows you how.




    NUTS!
    This very detailed, colorful, and authorized story of Southwest Airlines’ unmatched success will give you and your organization a blueprint for strategic change in leadership, culture and service. NUTS! gives every reader permission to engage in new patterns of behavior and leadership. NUTS! defines vision as the true boss and offers a how to on creating a culture of service and accountability — a culture that is purposeful not accidental.




      Nanovation: How a Little Car Can Teach the World to Think Big and Act Bold

      Do you have the eyes, the ears, and the hands to be a Nanovator? You′re about to find out.

      In India, entire families- too poor to afford a car- crowd onto a single motor scooter every day to brave the tangled traffic lurching through the streets. One evening Tata Motor′s venerable chairman Ratan Tata witnessed something on those rain-soaked streets that both horrified him and birthed a dream: an overloaded scooter lost traction in a busy intersection and sent several members of the family tumbling across the pavement. In that moment Nanovation took root in Tata′s imagination.

      The very idea was supposed to be impossible. A safe and appealing family car for the price of a motor scooter? The experts dismissed it. But Ratan Tata was undeterred. When budget constraints, design restrictions, the rising costs of materials, and political agitation threatened to derail the project, Team Nano pressed on. This is the story of how, in the face of insurmountable odds, Tata Motors created one of the greatest innovations in the auto industry since Model-T.

      Nanovation has disrupted an entire industry and changed the game for India forever. Imagine what it can do for your business. Is your company changing the way society functions?

      What′s your Nanovative idea? It′s time to get moving!

      Warning! Don′t read this book unless you are ready to challenge management dogma, taken-for-granted assumptions, and outdated systems by asking “what if?” and “why not?” to some of your industry′s toughest questions.

      But, if you′re ready to revolutionize the products you make, the processes you use, and the companies you build, pull up a seat at the drafting table with the creators of the Nano, the most important car to roll off the assembly line in decades. Discover the thinking that bred their ingenuity and the leadership that encouraged them to overcome adversity, to take risks despite their fear of failure, and to innovate beyond their customer′s wildest expectations.

      Order Here




      BOOM! 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors Off Business-As-Usual!

      You are DESIGNED to choose and DEFINED by your choices.
      In front of you are seven choices waiting to be made. Whether you are the leader or those being lead, these choices will determine the quality of your life and the significance of your contribution to the world in which you work.

      In BOOM the Freiberg′s have distilled 20 years of collective wisdom into 7 essential choices that cause culture, service, success, and business to BOOM

      Choice #1: Be a Player
      Choice #2: Be Accountable
      Choice #3: Choose Service Over Self-Interest
      Choice #4: Focus Forward
      Choice #5: Play to Your Genius
      Choice #6: Get It Done
      Choice #7: Risk More – Gain More

      These 7 choices are your wake-up call to freedom, and it′s your invitation to create a community of like-minded people who – together – will create organizations that can blow the doors off business as usual and cure the Dead People Working™ syndrome

      Order Here

      Nuts!: Southwest Airlines′ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success

      Twenty-five years ago, Herb Kelleher reinvented air travel when he founded Southwest Airlines, where the planes are painted like killer whales, a typical company maxim is “Hire people with a sense of humor,” and in-flight meals are never served–just sixty million bags of peanuts a year. By sidestepping “reengineering,” “total quality management,” and other management philosophies and employing its own brand of business success, Kelleher′s airline has turned a profit for twenty-four consecutive years and seen its stock soar 300 percent since 1990.

      Today, Southwest is the safest airline in the world and ranks number one in the industry for service, on-time performance, and lowest employee turnover rate; and Fortune magazine has twice ranked Southwest one of the ten best companies to work for in America. How do they do it?

      With unlimited access to the people and inside documents of Southwest Airlines, authors Kevin and Jackie Freiberg share the secrets behind the greatest success story in commercial aviation. Read it and discover how to transfer the Southwest inspiration to your own business and personal life.

      Order Here


      Guts!: Companies That Blow the Doors off Business-as-Usual

      Kevin and Jackie Freiberg′s previous book, Nuts!: Southwest Airline′s Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, described the unconventional leadership that made Southwest an airline industry dynamo. In Guts!, the Freibergs look at twenty-five gutsy and extraordinarily successful businesses and introduce the chief executives who are creating a new corporate ethos that blows the doors off business-as-usual.

      Drawing on five years of research, the Freibergs provide a behind-the-scenes look at these intensely focused, passionate, and unconventional leaders and their companies. Among them:

      • James Blanchard, CEO of Synovus Financial, a financial services giant with more than 16 billion dollars in assets
      • Roy Spence, Jr., President of GSD&M Advertising, which AdWeek magazine named Southwest Agency of the Year seven times
      • James Goodnight of SAS, a world leader in intelligence software

      Although the leaders in the book represent a wide-range of industries, they share a common vision: They see business as a heroic cause and understand that good leadership isn′t a matter of position, but of influence. They reject hierarchical rules, rituals, and expectations, and have replaced in-the-box management with a culture based on passion and innovation. They regard their employees not as “human resources,” but as individuals with unique gifts and talents. And make everyone in the company responsible for the company′s brand and culture.

      An exciting follow-up to Nuts!, which has sold nearly 500,000 copies in hardcover and paperback, Guts! proves that it is possible to have fun, live your values, and still make money.

      Order Here

    Related Speakers

    background

    Need help filling the seats at your next meeting / event?

    Call us / email us / check availability and fee for your favorite speaker.

    Get in touch
    Call us: (760) 656-8770
    Toll free in the US: (877) 717-5327
    speakers@speaking.com
    topqualityessays.com