top change Management & change Leadership keynote speaker
Stop trying to manage change. Lead it!
Are you looking for a change management keynote speaker who can equip your audience to turn anxiety about relentless change into agency and rigidity in the face of change into adaptability?
Nick Jankel is a virtuoso keynote speaker and world authority on leading change. Drawing on 30 years on the front lines of disruption, Nick shows audiences how to metabolize the energy and emotions of uncertainty into creativity, change-readiness, and growth—for themselves, their people, and their organization.
With science-backed insights, hard won lessons, and practical tools, Nick inspires audiences to work with, not against, human biology and lead in change, lead through change, and lead the change.
What clients say
Top 20-500
EXECUTIVE Events
Nick had a pronounced and profound impact. Exceptional!
President
Kellogg’s North America
Nick goes deeper and clearly made an impact on me and others. Looking forward to seeing the seeds grow in me and my organization!
Executive Vice-President
Merck
Industry & Association Conferences
Nick was the highlight of the 2-day conference. He made it worth going to. Thought-provoking, insightful, and very enjoyable.
SVP
Investment Bank
As a transformation guru, Nick’s ideas are as relevant to the newest startup as they are to the oldest public company.
Head of White House Office Of Innovation
Advisor to President Obama
Functions, Brand Teams & Business Unit Events
A standing ovation! I am already sharing the insights with my leaders. Thank you!
CEO
Unilever USA
Wonderful! The talk was motivating, thoughtful, and so well-delivered. Many of my colleagues said they felt seen for the first time.
Director
McCormick
Customer
& Sales EventS
An inspirational speech about the coming transformation. Both the content and the delivery were really strong: relevant, clear, concise and powerful. I highly recommend Nick as a speaker.
Director
Rothschild & Co
It was a revelation about how to navigate the new normal in the VUCA world. We have in us the key to adapt—let’s unlock it.
Senior Manager
Ernst & Young
change keynote speaker Audience Benefits
These will be customized to your audience realities, event goals, and strategy.
Nick Jankel challenges traditional change-management thinking, showing leaders how to move beyond controlling implementation to inspiring people to actively embrace and lead the change required.
A Cambridge-educated medical scientist, Nick Jankel shares the brain science of change—and how recent breakthroughs show us how to keep our people from falling back into repetition, resistance, and rigidity when change comes.
Nick Jankel’s motivates audiences to addresses the accelerating gap between technological change, like self-improving AIs, and the slower psychological and organizational capacity to adapt.
Having trained and coached 100,000+ leaders in companies like HSBC, AbbVie, and Intel on how to unlock change, Nick Jankel helps audiences transform the big energies and strong emotions around change into adaptability, agency, and action.
Going beyond inspiration to tangible change, Nick Jankel shares hard-won lessons from personally leading 100+ innovation and transformation programs for major global organizations such as Microsoft, Unilever, and Diageo—and can include practical tools and interventions designed to change what people do after the event.
Through highly experiential and customized keynotes— in which Nick Jankel combines geopolitical trends, futures and foresight, neuroscience, behavioral science, and decades of practical experience to explain why change is not optional and what really enables—and blocks—change and transformation.
Nick Jankel shares actionable insights on how to help team members flow rather than freeze in change and transform pressure into possibilities by letting go of the outdated habits and mindsets that block inevitable change.
Nick Jankel demonstrates and teaches simple, 5-minute-a-day practices that help people cope with change and build readiness—and even excitement!—for the road ahead.
In a deep dive or workshop, Nick Jankel provides powerful takeaway tools to design leadership change stories and change management initiatives that mobilize and accelerate people along the journey of change.
Top Keynote Speaker On change management & Change Leadership
Nick Jankel is a sought-after change leadership and change management keynote speaker with almost 30 years of experience on the front lines of disruption. Having personally led 100+ innovation and transformation programs, he brings hard-won lessons on what really enables—and blocks—meaningful change.
His core message is simple: stop trying to manage change. Lead the change. Now!
Nick shows leaders how to move beyond controlling implementation and managing resistance to actively mobilizing people around change.
This approach is increasingly critical in the age of AI, where technological change is accelerating faster than the psychological and organizational capacity to adapt.
Nick helps leaders lead in change, lead through change, and lead the change—building the human capabilities required to transform successfully in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, and complex world.
Drawing on neuroscience, behavioral science, and decades of transformation experience, he reveals how leaders can transform the energy and strong emotions of anxiety about change into adaptability, creativity, and action.
Through his original science-backed methodology, BTX®, Nick helps organizations work with human biology and culture, rather than against them. He shows leaders how to shift themselves and others from Control & Protect Mode—micromanagement, defensiveness, resistance, repetition, and rigidity—into Create & Connect Mode, where adaptability, collaboration, and innovation become possible.
Nick delivers electrifying, energizing, and highly engaging keynotes for discerning companies, conferences, institutions, associations, and nations. His clients include Google, Microsoft, Nike, LEGO, Unilever, HP, Pfizer, HSBC, and No.10 Downing Street, and he has developed and coached more than 100,000 leaders worldwide.
His highly customized keynotes combine original science-backed ideas, actionable Ah-Ha! insights, real-world examples, and practical tools that turn inspiration into action. Rather than merely helping people cope with relentless disruption, Nick equips them to metabolize uncertainty and change into adaptability, growth, innovation, and value creation.
By Nick Jankel: NOW LEAD THE CHANGE
Repurpose your career and future-proof your organization by mastering transformational leadership
By Nick Seneca Jankel
The fast-moving VUCA world of digital technologies, disrupted customers, and global risks is demanding that every leader can adapt their products, people, and processes fast enough to survive. But conventional management science was developed to maintain the status quo, not to transform it. Now Lead The Change presents seven science-driven yet wisdom-led principles of transformational leadership to unlock your capacity to lead the change you want to see.
Top 20/50/500 Exec events & Summits
Customer & Sales Events
Functions, Brand Teams & Business Units
Industry & Association Conferences
Top 20/50/100/500 Leader events
Customer & Sales Events
Functions, Brand Teams & Business Units
Industry & Association Conferences
A standing ovation! I am already sharing the insights with my leaders. Thank you!
CEO,
Unilever USA
Nick was the highlight of the 2-day conference. He made it worth going to. Thought-provoking, insightful, and very enjoyable.
SVP
Investment Bank
Nick had a pronounced and profound impact. Exceptional!
President,
Kellogg’s North America
Nick transformed our event with an engaging and evocative talk that hit all the nails that we put out there. It set a perfect scene for the remainder!
Head of Marketing,
Syngenta
change LeaderSHip keynote taster video
Having led over 100 innovation and transformation projects for world-class companies like Microsoft, Unilever, Virgin, and DiiO, including one that led to the most successful TV show in history, I discovered that most innovation, change, and transformation projects fail not because of a lack of ideas, investment, resolve, or resources. The root cause is outdated mindsets and cultures. There is often an excess of judgment, force, command, and control, coupled with a deficiency in genuine creativity and customer insight. Unfortunately, the little creativity present is usually misplaced or confined to brainstorms that rarely yield breakthroughs.
Consequently, the enormous energy and creativity required for successful change and innovation are often wasted due to fear, confusion, and friction. There is a lack of safety and trust, hindering the necessary risk-taking in innovation and transformation. In essence, without the right mindsets – where people are given permission to think differently, cope with uncertainty, and embrace risk – success is unlikely.
Over decades, my colleagues and I have developed powerful tools and experiential practices that build genuine innovation, transformation, and change-positive mindsets. When you provide your brief, I commit to working tirelessly to amplify your messages and elevate your ambitions.
Remaining independent as a thought leader, challenger, and aspirer, each of my keynotes is customized to meet and exceed expectations, connecting with your specific audience to unleash energy, momentum, inspiration, and traction.
During my keynote, I can share insights on building a mindset that seamlessly switches between task-oriented activities and reflection, creativity, and connection. Learn how to overcome rampant perfectionism, encouraging everyday experimentation.
Discover strategies to reframe the pain of failure and transform emotions around confusion, loss of status, and making mistakes.
Explore ways to stimulate creative thinking and foster breakthroughs without relying on outdated brainstorming techniques. Understand why curiosity is a business asset and how to institute a “go or grow” mindset.
I also delve into the typical killers and unlockers of innovation and change, providing valuable insights on unleashing people-powered transformation. Book me for your event, and let’s revolutionize your workplace together.