Travels from Netherlands
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez's speaking fee falls within range: $15,000 to $20,000
Global business strategist Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez equips multinational executives to focus their company and themselves, so they can elect, manage, and execute projects more efficiently even during tough times. He draws from his own experience as a corporate and financial leader at Fortis Bank, where he led the largest takeover in the financial service history at that time.
Prior to that, he was the global lead practitioner for project management at PricewaterhouseCoopers where he led a global survey on the state of program management within 200 companies across 30 countries. Due to his in-demand expertise, he has had a parallel teaching career, lecturing on strategy and project management at Duke CE, Instituto de Empresa, Solvay, and Vlerick.
In 2013 Mr. Nieot-Rodriguez was elected as DIRECTOR of the Board of the Project Management Institute, the largest project management association in the world. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Board there and is the Director of Program Management Office at GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. His book The Focused Organization offers powerful insights on how organizations and individuals can increase their focus and improve the way they manage their strategic initiatives.
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is Director of Program Management Office at GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. Previously he worked as Head of Transversal Portfolio Management at BNP Paribas Fortis, where he developed and implemented of a company-wide project selection and prioritization process for a portfolio of 150. He was also responsible of monitoring the execution of the roadmap providing quarterly updates to the bank’s executive committee.
Prior to that, Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez was the head of Post-Merger Integration at Fortis Bank, leading what was the largest takeover in the financial service history: the acquisition of ABN AMRO. He also worked for 10 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a senior manager, becoming the global lead practitioner for project management.
Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez is a professor at the prestigious executive education school Duke CE, and other leading business schools such as Instituto de Empresa, Solvay and Vlerick. He has delivered executive programs to leaders of more than 30 multinationals on how to improve their strategy execution and project management capabilities. He is also a regular keynote speaker at international events, where he speaks on the strategic value of project management. Recently he participated in the leading Strategy Conference in the Middle East together with Bob Kaplan, founder of the Balanced Scorecard.
The author of the book The Focused Organization, Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez has been featured in several magazines, including Strategy Business Review, Singapore Management Institute, Project Management Journal®, PM Network® and The Economist. He is also the author of the white paper “Boosting Business Performance through Programme and Project Management”, which was written after he conducted one of the first global project management maturity surveys. Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez is the founder of one of the largest LinkedIn group on Strategy Execution (StrateXecution), which has more than 5,000 experts worldwide.
Born in Madrid, Spain, he undertook undergraduate studies in Germany, Mexico, Italy and the United States. He has a university degree in economics from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and an MBA from London Business School. He is currently studying to obtain his PhD in strategy implementation. He is fluent in Spanish, English, French, Dutch, Italian and German.
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez discloses why it is so difficult for our brain to focus more on the positive side of life and what we can do to steer our mind away from its masochistic tendencies. Revealing that our brain decides to focus or ignore a topic in as little as seven seconds, Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez explains that more often than not, our minds continue to wander from theme to theme until they find a negative memory or thought to dwell on.
Thinking for the worse, as it turns out, is a survival trait that dates back to prehistoric times, when our ancestors needed to be constantly on edge in order to survive a world of nonstop danger. While our genetics may be slow to catch up with our environment, Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez claims, "Everyone can train their brains to look at the positive side of change...With a positive mindset while you are going through some of the most painful changes of your life, you can learn, you can grow, and you can become a better person."
Speaking from decades of experience, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez applies strategy and management ideas to solving real life problems in the work place. His presentations spotlight quick and simple answers to conflicts and complex situations encountered everyday in the office and boardroom.
Mr. Nieto-Rodriguez is especially skilled at connecting with diverse audiences due to his vast experience working with people from a wide array of backgrounds. He has taught business strategy in three different countries, spoken at over 100 conferences around the world, and most recently has participated in the leading Strategy Conference in the Middle East together with Bob Kaplan, founder of the Balanced Scorecard. He is fluent in both English and Spanish, and well-versed in French, German, Italian, and Dutch.
To Focus or not to Focus? It takes just 7 seconds for our brain to decide whether to pay attention, to listen, to take action…or not. This decision is often made unconsciously; either our brain connects with the topic or not. But when the connection happens, then we are in the ‘bubble’, in the ‘zone’ – we are FOCUSED. Antonio’s experience straddles business and academia and he knows a thing or two about being focused.
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“Antonio was a keynote speaker at our top 300 managers conference we recently organized, and attendees unanimously acclaimed his intellectual sharpness, oratorical dexterity and interpersonal skills. Antonio has a knack for breaking complex topics down into easy-to-grasp subjects. In addition, participants also appreciated his ability to apply management and strategy topics to real-life challenges, shedding light on quick yet effective ways to efficiently solve everyday problems. In short: Antonio is a brilliant, savvy presenter whom I would like to hear again and again and again.” – Communications Manager, ING BANK
“Antonio is an excellent speaker and communicator. He recently presented “Selling Project Portfolio Management to the CXO team by making the link to Strategy Execution” to my project management community which was very well received. Antonio was articulate, informative and extremely insightful. He was extremely well prepared and very knowledgeable on the subject matter. I would highly recommend Antonio as a speaker on project management topics.”Advisory Project Manager / PM Knowledge Network Lead, IBM
“Antonio was a keynote speaker at our yearly summit in 2014. His speaking session was the latest one session after three days of solid presentation. It’s 16:30 and the crowd was exhausted… Antonio gets on the stage… He starts to tell his story… It takes thee minutes to capture the entire crowd! With simplicity and lot of humor he got all the attention of the audience, delivered his messages, provided worth full thoughts, and finished his presentation voted by everybody as the best speaker of the conference… (by far)…” Senior Strategy, Marketing & Business Development executive, Qatar Petroleum
“I had the pleasure of seeing Antonio speak at our annual convention. where he had the crucial speaking slot at the very end of the day. Antonio’s presentation style is perfect for this slot – he has precisely the right combination of humour, passion and content knowledge to completely capture the audience’s attention. If you have the chance to see Antonio speak, do so! His wealth of experience combined with his charismatic presentation style is truly inspirational.” – People and Organisational Change Manager, Johnson & Johnson
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The Focused Organization How concentrating in just a few key initiatives can dramatically improve strategy execution
Most aptly named The Focused Organization, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez’ book discusses how fewer, more effectively elected and managed projects are the key to strategy execution and long-term success and how project management is a key in this process.
Organizations that focus on just a few key initiatives are able to perform significantly better than organizations trying to achieve too many objectives. This focused approach not only impacts organizations financially but also assists them in achieving strategic objectives, motivating staff and in this way resulting in profitable organizations.
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