Andrew Grant & Dr. Gaia Grant Speaking Topics

• LEADING INNOVATION ON THE EDGE: Navigating the AI Adoption Divide

  The rapid rise of AI is reshaping leadership, adding an unpredictable ‘X factor’ to an already complex landscape.

  INTRO: As businesses race to innovate, leaders must juggle competing demands—balancing urgency and caution to drive sustainable growth. This new wave of growth is reshaping leadership, forcing executives to balance tradition with transformation, speed with strategy, and agility with stability.

  ABOUT: Innovation has become essential not just because it’s fashionable, but because the challenges faced are compounding and won’t stand still. Yet many leaders feel torn between maintaining core services and rethinking how those services must rapidly evolve. The tension between competing demands is real, especially when teams are stretched, and the stakes are high. This session cuts through the noise, tackling the core paradoxes of AI-driven transformation and providing practical strategies. Covering areas such as decisionmaking, problem-solving, fostering an innovation culture, and leadership tactics, participants learn how to balance creative ingenuity with AI-powered efficiency. The topic provides a powerful introduction and/or subplot to ensure AI supports—not hinders—innovation, empowering organizations to succeed in an era of disruption.

  THE WHAT: The dynamic keynote also explores the unique challenges of AI adoption: examining how leaders can harness the potential without losing control. Through groundbreaking insights from Andrew and Dr. Gaia Grant’s book, "The Innovation Race," and Gaia’s unique research with the University of Sydney Business School, the keynote/workshop introduces powerful tools like the Innovation Climate Leadership Indicator (iCLi) and Dynamic Polar Positioning (DPoP) to help leaders navigate digital transformation. Several case studies are also included to show how these principles and tools can be applied in real-world settings.

  THE WHY: While many futurists indulge in sharing dazzling forecasts and speculative tech marvels, the Grants offer a grounded, strategic approach. This session isn’t about predicting the future. Instead, it prepares leaders to confidently manage uncertainty. The focus is not on future fantasies but on future readiness. As a result, executives and leaders are equipped with practical strategies to foster agility, resilience, and sustainable innovation—ensuring they don’t just keep up with AI but lead through disruption.

  Dr. Gaia Grant and Andrew Grant will not only help you stay current with AI but also lead through the tension. Participants leave with the confidence to steer transformational change in an era where complexity, creativity, and AI must coexist.

  Key Takeaways & Talking Points

  • Understand the impact of AI on leadership and innovation
  • Navigate the tensions between speed and strategy in AI-driven change
  • Gain insights into effective (Ambidextrous) leadership styles and how to manage the competing demands
  • Apply practical models and tools designed to executive digital transformation with confidence

• MORE CORE KEYNOTE TOPICS (Dr. Gaia Grant &/or Andrew Grant)

  We need to be creative to be innovative. But the relentless push to innovate faster is producing a toxic culture that may undermine the whole creative process. In our rush for end results fast, we could ironically be killing the very thing that will lead us to innovation: creativity. Creativity and innovation are not interchangeable words, and it’s important for effective businesses to understand why. In these sessions, we explore why we need both, and the paradoxes behind this that can impact our work.

  Core Keynote AND/OR A hybrid keynote/workshop. This option allows for the participants and all stakeholders to walk away with interactive, actionable data from the collective intelligence of the group’s contributions to real live workplace challenges and solutions. (recommended 1- 2 hours.)

  INNOVATE

  1. Leading on the Edge: Navigating the AI Adoption Divide. Explores the leadership paradox at the heart of AI adoption—how to embrace innovation without losing what matters most. By balancing the ‘Explore’ and ‘Preserve’ mindsets, leaders can move beyond hype to drive meaningful, sustainable change. (+ JPMChase Leadership in the age of Gen-AI case study).

  2. The Innovation Race: Becoming Future Ready. Who will win, lose and be eliminated? What does successful & sustainable Innovation look like? Includes: best practices- Countries, Companies, Cultures, Innovation Leaders, Business Transformation in an AI world.

  3. Are you an Innovative Leader? Creating agile leadership teams: Identifying ambidexterity across different occupational profiles to manage the tension of change. (includes an Innovation profiling assessment iLCi)

  4. How to Make Rapid AND Responsible Decisions about New Innovations. Mastering the art of purpose-driven innovation leadership for driving sustainable change
  5. The Collaboration Concept: A gamified simulation (including a live social experiment & gamified simulation to explore the challenge of building collaborative teams in a corporate competitive environment).

  These programs have been successfully deployed to benchmark and develop the UAE Prime Minister’s Office Future Leaders (with DukeCE). + APEC CEO Forum, Baker McKenzie, Boeing, Channel, Gartner, General Mills, Google, HSBC, ICBC Bank of China, Lenovo, Lufthansa, Salesforce, YPO & for Harvard Business School.

  CREATE

  1. The AI Creative Challenge: Leading Through Innovation. Harness AI without losing the human spark
  2. Harnessing Creative Intelligence (CQ)

     • for a distinct competitive advantage (including personal creativity measure feedback and goals).

  3. Who Killed Creativity?... And How to Get it Back? Identifying creativity challenges and solutions from the classroom to the boardroom (including why Design Thinking often fails and how to prepare for it better).
  4. The 7 Critical & Creative Thinking Strategies + AI Critical Thinking Lab: Future-Proofing Leadership- for generating practical new innovations (including 7 practical examples & applications from the 7-step process)

  This framework has accelerated innovation across the mobility ecosystem, including Daimler, SAIC Motor & Toyota. Other industry leader engagements include: Accenture, Alipay, ANZ Bank, Citibank, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Google, KPMG, Nestlé, PwC, Salesforce, Swiss Re, YPO.

• CREATIVE & CRITICAL THINKING IN THE AGE OF AI: Building the Thinking Skills That Technology Can’t Replace

  In an era where AI is transforming how organizations think, decide, and innovate, this session equips leaders with the human capabilities that matter most: creative intelligence and critical judgment. Andrew Grant and/or Dr. Gaia Grant demonstrates how to harness AI as a powerful accelerator — without losing the originality, insight, and reflective thinking that drive breakthrough performance and ensure ‘human

  • in-the-loop’.

  Blending global executive experience, research insights, and frameworks featured in the Harvard case study "JPMorgan Chase: Leadership in the Age of GenAI," this session explores how to generate novel ideas, evaluate them rigorously, and navigate complexity with clarity. Participants learn how AI reshapes problem-solving and decision-making, and how to avoid the cognitive biases and shortcuts that undermine innovation.

  The session introduces practical tools and diagnostics-including the Creative Quotient (CQ), the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), and Tirian’s AI Creativity Utilization Dial—to help leaders identify their creative strengths, challenge assumptions, and determine when to lean on AI versus when human ingenuity must lead.

  Designed as a keynote or an interactive workshop, this session gives teams the confidence and capability to tackle “wicked problems” using a balanced blend of AI-enabled efficiency and human-driven creativity.

  Key Takeaways & Talking Points

  • Strengthen creative and critical thinking as core leadership capabilities in an AI-accelerated world
  • Learn when and how to integrate AI into creative and design thinking processes
  • Use the AI Creativity Utilization Dial to balance human insight with machine intelligence
  • Use the CQ and TTCT to measure your creative thinking capacity—and examine where human creativity outperforms AI’s attempts.
  • Overcome cognitive biases and build a culture of thoughtful enquiry and innovation

  A dynamic, future-focused session for organizations seeking to elevate thinking, sharpen decision-making, and unlock the full potential of human–AI collaboration.

• FROM STAGE TO STRATEGY: EXTENDING THE REACH

  Integrated Engagement: Optional Enhancements for Deeper Learning

  For organizations aiming to maximize the return on their keynote investment, a variety of optional extensions are available. These add-ons are designed to elevate a standard presentation into a fully integrated learning experience—before, during, and after the event. When selecting keynote extensions, it's important to weigh whether your priority is budget or outcomes—because while basic options meet the brief, premium add-ons are designed to deliver lasting impact and strategic value.

  Prior, During, and Post-Keynote Enhancements

  • Pre-Event Options: Optional pre-engagement services include Pre-event diagnostic, stakeholder consultations, audience surveys, and tailored content design. These ensure the keynote is aligned with strategic objectives and customized to resonate with your specific audience. (see ANZ Case study below)

  • During the Event: For deeper engagement, the keynote can be extended into a hybrid format—seamlessly transitioning into a facilitated workshop. This allows participants to actively apply insights to real-world challenges, contribute to collaborative tools such as live dashboards, and generate actionable outcomes in real time. There’s also the option to stay on for Q&A, media, networking, and informal meet-and-greets to enrich the wider conference experience. Includes a custom-design Collaborator Canvas—a digital dashboard that captures the group’s collective insights and translates them into actionable plans.

  • Post-Event Integration: To embed learning beyond the event, follow-up resources are available such as a post-event reflection toolkit, blended learning modules, digital workbooks, and worksheet summaries are available. These support ongoing application and help translate inspiration into workplace impact.

  Supporting Materials

  Optional collateral includes innovation profiling tools, digital dashboard canvases, and published resources on creativity, culture change, and purpose-driven innovation. These materials are ideal for participants who wish to explore the keynote themes in greater depth and apply them within their teams. + Optional follow-up coaching or facilitation.

  Why Consider These Extensions?

  These add-ons are designed to:

  • Ensure relevance and strategic alignment
  • Deepen audience engagement and participation
  • Provide tools for long-term implementation
  • Transform a keynote into a catalyst for change

  These extensions can be tailored to suit your event format, audience needs, and desired outcomes.

  Case Study: Strategic Content Integration

  When ANZ Bank engaged a Critical Thinking keynote/masterclass for their 5,000 participants, existing internal design thinking models were meticulously integrated into the program architecture. This high-level alignment allowed the ANZ Academy to present the session as a core component of a broader learning ecosystem, directly connecting the content to both previous initiatives and future developmental goals.

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