Engineer & Tech Entrepreneur; Curator of First Ever TEDx Event; Founder, MIT & USC Innovation Centers

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Krisztina Holly Biography

Krisztina “Z” Holly has three decades of experience in entrepreneurship, innovation, business strategy, higher education, and technological change. She scouts and invests in early-stage complex science and technology startups as a venture partner at Good Growth Capital. Also, through her firm At Large and Dangerous, she is a sought-after speaker, trusted advisor, and board member for companies and organizations around the world.

An MIT-trained engineer and tech entrepreneur, Holly has been at the frontier of innovation throughout her career. She is best known as the curator of the first-ever TEDx event and former vice provost for innovation at the University of Southern California. She has been recognized by Rolling Stone, WIRED, Forbes, and Inc. magazines for her ability to discover and cultivate untapped innovators and devise novel business models for global growth and impact.

Holly spent over a decade in higher education--first at MIT, where she established the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, and then at USC, where she founded the university’s Stevens Institute for Innovation. Her programs invested in dozens of university technologies that have since raised over $1 billion in venture capital. Based on Holly’s leadership, the White House invited her to advise the Obama Administration on technology and economic policy and help federal agencies and universities around the country embrace the now-common “innovation center” model she pioneered at MIT and USC.

Early in her career, Holly helped launch and grow tech companies in Boston and Silicon Valley, and since then has advised hundreds of leaders across the private sector, academia, and government. She guided the World Economic Forum in entrepreneurship and manufacturing strategy and served as inaugural Entrepreneur in Residence for Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti, where she established a non-profit to help makers launch 16 products and invest $6.7 million in local production.

Holly earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Speaker profile last updated by AAE Talent Team on 08/13/2025.

Krisztina Holly Speaking Topics

  • Build Beyond Yourself: A Better Path to Growth, Innovation, & Impact

    Innovation is a fundamentally social act, and Krisztina "Z" Holly provides her behind-the-scenes stories of growth and innovation. Through surprising stories—including the origins of the shipping container, skateboard culture, TEDx, and the most active seed investor in the world—you’ll learn:

    • How new technologies are changing the way we innovate—and how to stay ahead of the curve
    • Why we must stop growing—and start replicating and sharing—to achieve maximum impact and agility
    • How mass tinkering, not crowdsourcing, can enable you to unlock innovation your organization could never achieve by itself

    If you are seeking influence and impact in a time of rapid change, join Z for this thought-provoking and entertaining session, and get ready to question your assumptions about scale.

  • The Future of Creativity: How to Innovate in a Time of Rapid Change

    In this inspiring presentation, Krisztina "Z' Holly explores how it’s not just great ideas that will drive significant impact across industries and society, but how we innovate that matters most. Z shares entertaining examples—not only business and tech, but also robots and rockets, artists in the desert, and 7,000 physicists looking for the secrets of the universe—to illustrate how to harness others’ imagination. You’ll learn:

    • What a collective, distributed, and iterative future means for your business strategy
    • How to collaborate with new technologies to unlock your organization’s full innovative potential
    • How to reinvent your innovation process to stay competitive, no matter what the future brings

    Drawing from her extensive experience with startups and technology, Z provides actionable insights on fostering a culture of creativity to turn visionary concepts into reality.

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Krisztina Holly Videos

Krisztina Holly | TEDxLASalon

Krisztina Holly | TEDxLASalon

Serious Tinkering

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  • What topics does Krisztina Holly speak about?

    Krisztina Holly is a keynote speaker and industry expert whose speaking topics include Business, Business Leadership, Creativity, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Finance, Host & Emcee, Political, Sustainability, TED
  • Where does Krisztina Holly travel from?

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Krisztina Holly is a keynote speaker and industry expert who speaks on a wide range of topics such as Build Beyond Yourself: A Better Path to Growth, Innovation, & Impact, The Future of Creativity: How to Innovate in a Time of Rapid Change, Designing Eureka: Harness Your Inner Entrepreneur and Hosting & Emceeing. The estimated speaking fee range to book Krisztina Holly for your event is available upon request. Krisztina Holly generally travels from and can be booked for (private) corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. Similar motivational celebrity speakers are An Phung, Dambisa Moyo, Sheena Iyengar, Jeffrey Israel and Seth Berkley. Contact All American Speakers for ratings, reviews, videos and information on scheduling Krisztina Holly for an upcoming live or virtual event.

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