Travels from Texas, USA
Nancy Giordano's speaking fee falls within range: $30,000 to $50,000
Leading futurist and branding guide for purpose-driven companies, Nancy Giordano helps businesses broaden their perspective, boost their agility, and play big in an ultra-disruptive and socially responsible economy. Ranked as one of the top female futurists in the world, Giordano is the founder and CEO of Play Big Inc., a strategy firm that has worked with Coca-cola, Sprint, Acumen, Nestle, and others in transitioning to the new economy of collaboration and contribution.
Giordano built up her branding expertise, cultural literacy, and sharp foresight working at prominent ad agencies in NY, Chicago, and LA. She has over 10 years showing leaders how to connect the dots and target critical issues and has influenced a net worth of $50 billion in global brands. Voted 7th Woman of Influence on the Future of Leadership list, Giordano’s expertise and experience ranges from A.I. to frozen foods, but all her projects have one key common denominator: reinventing old operating systems and outdated business models that simply do not hold up today.
Giordano is a collaborative partner with TED, The World Future Society, REX, Voice & Exit, and the newly forming Global Synthesis Network. She was the first global TEDx licensee and is the organizer of TEDxYouth@Austin which hosts 1,000 teens each year, making it one of the largest TED youth events in the world.
Strategic Futurist | Author | Gatherer | Keynote Speaker | Founder of playbiginc
Described as endlessly optimistic, Nancy is a strategic futurist and bestselling author with a drive to help enterprise organizations and visionary leaders transform to meet the escalating expectations ahead. Recognized as one of the world’s top female futurists, she has spent her career building, shaping and evolving a portfolio of $60+ billion worth of major global brands. Invited to give over 100 global keynote talks, and with growing conviction of what will (and needs to) shift, executives value her unique abilities to sense and synthesize the terrain ahead.
Her expertise and experiences range from A.I., to frozen foods, to reinventing the internet. All of her projects have a key common denominator: transitioning away from the extractive operating systems and outdated business thinking that no longer holds up, to creating the more sustainable, inclusive and dynamic solutions the future demands.
ADVISOR – With an early career at three of the top global advertising agencies and as founder of her own strategic inspiration company, Play Big Inc, Nancy has a rich history of advising and learning with some of the top companies in the world. In 2015 she helped shape an artificial intelligence start-up and later went on to build a leadership summit designed to encourage c-suite executives to explore seven of the most disruptive emergent technologies for business. Nancy has served on the board of retail trade association GMDC and is currently on the advisory council for Retail Tomorrow, Future Frontiers + Dollar Donation Club.
STRATEGIST – Two years ago, Nancy partnered with Austin-based artificial intelligence services company, Kungfu.AI. She is also working Riane Eisler to create a movement around Partnerism, a socio-economic system that is built on partnership versus the domination models of Capitalism and Socialism. And is helping advance two post-blockchain solutions poised to weave a more human internet : Holochain + Holo hosting.
GATHERER – A 10-year TEDx curator (and world’s first licensee), Nancy is a Singularity University guest lecturer, frequent panelist at South by Southwest (SXSW), creator of the first Career Fair For the Future event for college + high school students, co-Founder of the Femme Futurists Society (a collection of interviews with leading futurists around the world).
AUTHOR – Ranked #1 on Amazon for both Business Ethics and Organization Strategy, her first book, titled Leadering: The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger, defines and makes visible the dynamic, inclusive and audacious mindset leaders must cultivate in order to stay relevant, help build a better next and shape the First Productivity Revolution (!PR)
Regarded futurist Nancy Giordano outlines the most important trends steering our society forward and explains how we must change our business models and institutional systems in order to remain relevant. From growing income inequality to the relationship economy, she poses the ethical challenges today's leaders need to face and the tools they must manage to skillfully do so.
Some of the key characteristics successful leaders must have include self-awareness, humility, and the ability to admit they are willing to learn and listen. "Living in a land of ambiguity is okay, not always having the answer is fine," she tells CEOs. Furthermore, in today's environment, she emphasizes that leaders and their organizations will benefit from "this idea that we can actually trust each other, that we can go into a space of expressing, and listening with empathy."
Leading futurist, Nancy Giordano helps audiences discover key trends and technologies shaping their future along with the exciting opportunities these shifts present. Brimming with optimism and valuable insights, Giordano inspires business leaders and their teams to reinvent models and strategies, equipping them with the necessary tools to move forward successfully while maximizing the meaning they contribute to society.
Nancy speaks at public conferences and private executive industry conventions and summits around the world, delivering keynote talks that range from 25-minute toplines to 3-hour, in-depth workshops.
Topics include:
Just One Percent In: Preparing for the “First Productivity Revolution”.
When you speak with the visionaries, technologists and entrepreneurs building the solutions of tomorrow—from on-demand retail to remote surgery—and ask how far into this new era we are, almost universally the reply is: “only one percent”. For many that is exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. What will it mean for your organization? Insights include:
• Learning what’s on the horizon and the potential impacts. • Moving beyond industrial era mindsets and reframing risk. • What makes this moment especially potent. • How to prepare when the future is an exponentially moving target. • The evolution of societal scaffolding. • Why purpose matters more than ever. • How work processes are shifting and changing shape.
2030+ | The Beyond Economy + How We All Can Build a Much Better Next
We are standing at the front end of an astronomical shift in how the world will work. And change will happen fast, with some predicting more than fourteen internet size revolutions in the next decade. As we pull out of a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, both technological advances and mounting societal breakdowns are reshaping what comes next. Can you imagine where we’ll be ten years from now? How about 50? What will happen when:
• We have increasing global abundance? • Everything, everywhere is connected? • Demonetization and democratization of legacy models accelerates? • We have extended human longevity and health? • Super intelligence with brain/computer interfaces is achieved? • GDP is replaced with a more accurate measure of economic prosperity? • We reprioritize for ecological regeneration and environmental stability? • We redesign the future with confidence and care?
The Necessary Shift From Leadership to Leadering.
Adjusting to a post-COVID world as we advance into a transformative new era can be challenging, especially as structures and tactics put in place to reduce risk in the 20th Century, are now often the very things creating vulnerability in the 21st Century. This moment demands that we shift from thinking of leadership as static, hierarchical and focused on short-term growth, to embracing it as a dynamic, inclusive and constantly learning practice, in order to build long-term value. Key takeaways are:
• The set of new practices and approaches that 21st Century stewardship demands. • How to embrace both change and complexity with greater confidence. • Envisioning the future you want to build. • Ditching the playbook and navigating with a compass instead. • Why preparation not planning is key to future success. • How to make peace with paradox. • The necessity to rethink risk • Change your mindset, change the world.
The New Org “Chart”. Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning) is about to hit the longanticipated exponential curve, radically shifting organizations. The next three years are critical to either becoming an AI-led organization—or risk being taken over as a subsidiary of one—which is why we must prepare now to to make the most of the huge productivity leap coming towards us.
• How fast-growing advances in machine learning will revolutionize how business is done… in just the next three years • The need to leverage extensive ecosystems as siloes collapse • The new talent landscape • Why trust is paramount as predictive data analysis provides unprecedented insights • The responsibility of navigating the vast opportunities ahead with intention • The very human side to tech productivity advances
Creating The Future You Want To See: (aka Inspiring Generations To Come).
Witnessing glaring climate crises, environmental degradation, rising inequality and violence, and on-going tech disruption, unprepared youth are experiencing unprecedented levels of depression and anxiety, horrifying rates of suicide, and growing obesity epidemic. Instead of being fearful, how can we prepare and empower them for such a fast moving + continuously unfolding future? How do we inspire a more positive narrative and instill a sense of agency to act, shape and build what’s coming to ensure a safe and thriving future for all?
• The speed of change + the need to learn “beyond the syllabus” • How breakdowns create huge opportunities for breakthroughs • Understanding incumbent incentives to scare (vs empower) us • The five capacities that prepare us for any future • The value of empathy when designing, shaping and creating • Why we must put humans at the center of our technological future • The need for ethical business models + new approaches to distribute productivity • Why NOW matters
The Forces Shaping The Enterprise Of The Future.
It’s not easy to let go of the playbook we’re all used to, but the future demands we let go of outdated “best practices” and instead learn to sense and respond in real time. Why? Simply put, there are several very big shifts happening simultaneously that are reshaping business and society - that will require equally big shifts in how we respond - especially if we intend to remain relevant in the years ahead. These include:
• Radically escalating expectations for performance/delivery • The calculus of exponential change • The growing emphasis on stakeholders (vs only investors) • The need for long-term versus short-term thinking • Redressing systemic injustice and climate instability • A fundamental shift in “talent”
The Future of Work and Working.
Culturally we’ve come to define work as a job we are paid to do. However, it is becoming clear that this is a very limiting definition that distorts our view of what the future really needs and expects ahead. As we imagine a world heavily influenced by exponential technologies, how will our experiences and roles shift? What are the issues and opportunities this will bring when we consider:
• Worker wellbeing • How to attract the talent of the future • Becoming an irresistible organization • Scaling from a culture of efficiency to a culture of learning • Four scenarios for the future of work • The important distinction between the future of work and working • What it means to be status fluid and why it’s so important
“Nancy, I was in attendance during your virtual presentation last week. You are brilliant and inspiring. I am reading your book asap! Thank you.” – Katie Chesen, Group Account Director, InTouch Group
“Thank you for taking the time to speak to our team last week about the important work that you do. It was both eye-opening and inspiring”. – Kristen Schwarz, Vice President, HBOMax
“Your’s was the talk that gave my SXSW experience it’s intellectual center of gravity. Many thanks”. – Rich Donovan, Creative Director, LIDA Australia
“Nancy has a unique ability to highlight the most innovative applications of technology on the market, while making them relevant to the audience and somehow making the true story about people”. – Alex Saric, CMO, Invalua
“I really loved your Vistage Summit Keynote – how you articulated the importance of data ethics, diversity in decision making and compassion in how we manage and use our data, particularly in AI. You are so inspiring and look forward to reading your book Leadering!” – Kelle O’Neal – Founder & CEO, First San Francisco Partners
“Playbig Inc. says they ‘help leaders…play bigger’. But really, they actually help their clients THINK bigger, think better, think differently and help navigate the future in well considered and intelligently informed ways”. – Seth Foster, Vice President – Project Administration, ITEC
“THIS is what I appreciated most from your talk and your commitment. That to change what’s out there we need to change what’s in here. And to change the future, we need to change the present. Godspeed!” – Doug Barton, Director UW E-Business Consortium, University of Wisconsin Madison
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Leadering: The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger
Leadership is built on yesterday. Leadering confidently and thoughtfully anticipates tomorrow.
This transformative new era requires a radically different approach to leadership. The tactics put in place to reduce risk, drive success and make us feel safe in the past are now the very things creating vulnerability today. In Leadering, Nancy Giordano provides clarity and urgency around what twentyfirst-century stewardship demands as exponential technologies and changing societal expectations converge to shape a better next.
Ditching last century’s industrial playbook—driven relentlessly, and almost exclusively, on growth—allows us to instead focus on building new, more expansive practices committed to human-centric innovation, regenerative solutions, and the creation of long-term value. With many years advising world-class enterprise leaders on ways to thrive in ambiguity, Nancy is convinced we don’t need to change what we think as much as how we think to be successful. This book challenges us to shift our outdated thinking and adopt the mindset we need to build the future we all want.
• Endorsed by bestselling authors and contemporary thought leaders such as: Sunni Brown, Riane Eisler, Douglas Rushkoff, Chip Conley. • Learn more about why we must move from Leadership to Leadering • Watch our Leadering Live series with global thought leaders including John Hagel, Steven Kotler, and Erica Dhawan
We’ve learned the hard way the challenges of providing bulk books and custom discounts to client groups, and so have set up our own book distribution storefront designed to offer Nancy’s book in any format (audio, ebook, paper or hard cover) to anywhere in the world. The hard copies are already signed and can be customized further if needed: https://shop.nancygiordano.com
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