Futurist: Forbes heralded Brian Solis as “one of the more creative and brilliant business minds of our time." He was recently named a "top futurist speaker," by ReadWrite. ZDNet called him “one of the 21st century business world’s leading thinkers.” Brian helps audiences understand the evolving, complex landscape of digital trends and how they impact our work, markets, and business over time. Whether it’s generative AI, AR/VR or and spatial computing, web3, the metaverse, IoT, digital twins, or quantum computing, Brian humanizes each wave of emergent disruption to help audiences understand trends and see themselves productively shaping the future. He helps shift people’s mindsets from being overwhelmed, confused, or intimidated to moving forward with curiosity, excitement, and imagination.
Digital Anthropologist: Brian is one of the industry’s first digital anthropologists who helped define the practice and humanized the trends. He observes how technology changes people’s behavior as leaders, employees, or customers and understand their aspirations, their values, how they make decisions, and how they want to work. Through this research, Brian helps audiences empathize with different generations (Gen-Y, Z, Alpha) and understand how technology creates a cross-generational superset of people with similar behaviors, interests, and aspirations. Brian coined these important groups as Generation-Connected and Generation-Novel. ServiceNow: Currently, Brian serves as the Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow. In his role, he sets the strategic direction and programming for ServiceNow's Innovation and Executive Briefing Centers in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Paris, Sydney, and Singapore. Additionally, Brian designs and delivers engagements with customers to advise on digital and business innovation strategies.
He writes for leading publications to help executives and customers understand technology and market trends and inspire business model innovation. United Nations: Brian serves as a special adviser to the UN global innovation team. He develops workshops and keynotes that explore emergent trends and future scenarios, scenario strategies, skills development, and culture and leadership. Salesforce: As the leader of Global Innovation at Salesforce, Brian gained a reputation as the “CxO Whisperer” because of his ability to translate shifting technology and market trends into actionable strategies. He also has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing companies and helps leaders think differently about current priorities and investments to future proof their organizations. Brian also partnered with leading brands to develop innovation pilots in service, L&D, and commerce, including applications that featured digital humans, 3D/immersive shopping and e-commerce powered by augmented reality.
A new generation of leaders must build innovative organizations by breaking free from the rigid processes and risk-averse cultures that hold companies and employees back. Business models weren’t the only thing disrupted when the world became digital-first overnight. Leadership itself needs a Ctrl-Alt-Del to compete in this new and still evolving world. Legacy management, rigid processes and mindsets, and risk-averse cultures won’t help businesses compete at the speed and capacity that markets are demanding. But many executives are confusing digitization brought on by 2020 disruption with innovation. There’s a stark difference, however. The adoption of innovative technologies can offer a blinding illusion of making businesses innovative when in actuality, they’re digitizing yesterday’s processes.
Now, leaders must reassess how digital technologies, evolving behaviors and expectations, and innovative leadership and operating models can lead to the creation of new market value. Otherwise, executives will get stuck in a finite cycle of trying to succeed in a digital economy with a pre-digital value proposition. The opportunity for leaders in this new world is to create space for creativity and imagination and an operating culture that helps people nurture their ideas into something transformative and meaningful to unlock new value.
In an engaging and insightful, Brian will:
Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Brian.
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