Top 20 Ranked Global Thinker, Bestselling Author, Podcast Host, CEO
Kaihan Krippendorff delivers the kind of keynote that equips audiences with actionable, research-backed tools to spark innovation and drive transformation at scale. Drawing on his work with leading global companies and his recognition as a top strategic thinker, he translates complex ideas into clear, energizing insights tailored to your organization’s goals. For event planners seeking a speaker who inspires, informs, and ignites meaningful change, Kaihan offers a compelling blend of credibility, relevance, and impact.
Kaihan Krippendorff Full Speaker Highlights Video
The Concept of Disruption and What People Get Wrong About It
Executive Leaders Offsite: Think Differently and Drive Growth
Create Something Out of Nothing: Growth & Innovation Keynote Speaker Kaihan Krippendorff
We live in an accelerated age of technology, disruption, volatility, and uncertainty. It demands that we lead our teams and organizations in radically new ways. Success depends not only on our own ability to think and act strategically, but on our ability to enable our team to think boldly, think differently, share ideas, and act.
Next-era leaders and teams need practical tools, structures, and frameworks that liberate them to achieve better business outcomes and problem-solve using AI, technology, contextual knowledge, and their own human creativity. Companies that activate this Outthinker Mindset are proven to be 6X more likely to recruit and retain top talent and 3X more likely to outperform financially – faster revenue growth, higher profit margins, greater business value.
Top 20 globally recognized management thinker, best-selling author, podcast host, and Founder of Outthinker, Kaihan Krippendorff helps you Outthink the Competition with his proven 5-step framework and toolset that can be applied immediately to move to the next level of success.
Participants will leave with:
In a world marked by accelerated change, disruption, and volatility, leaders must be able to rapidly observe, analyze, and connect information to seize opportunity and defend against possible threats to their business. Mental agility and agile adaptation are now a non-negotiable part of the business skillset.
In this interactive and practical keynote, globally recognized strategy expert and best-selling author Kaihan Krippendorff shares a proven framework and tools for unleashing agile problem solving and strategic thinking in everyday work. Inspiring stories handpicked for your event bring to life a playbook of the top five strategies being used today by agile disruptors to beat the competition.
Make agility a part of your organizational DNA so you can respond faster to change, seamlessly shift focus to the right priority for now, efficiently build and sustain momentum, and boost resilience that endures beyond any single initiative.
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In a world of constant disruption, technological change, and megatrend turbulence, how do we transform the way we lead and work? How do we see through the noise and make sense of what is important to our business?
The answer is Proximity – a simple yet powerful idea that helps leaders turn chaos into clarity.
Based on the groundbreaking new best-selling book, Proximity, which was hailed by Malcolm Gladwell’s Next Big Idea Club as a must-read and Thinkers50 as one of the most important new ideas in business this year, Kaihan will guide the audience on a journey of understanding to make sense of disruptors like artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, data proliferation, renewable energy, virtual reality, quantum computing, IoT, 3D printing, and new ways of working.
This high-impact keynote arms leaders with a Proximity Roadmap to navigate the future with a fresh mindset and the practical tools they need to take bold action and thrive.
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In our accelerated world of technology and disruption, the benefits of turning employees into innovators are well documented. Companies that treat their people as “Intrapreneurs” are building a competitive advantage that infuses innovation, adaptability, and future-readiness into their DNA.
Kaihan Krippendorff’s research debunks the story of the disruptive startup and shows that 70% of society’s most transformative innovations were conceived within large established organizations. with active Intrapreneur networks are 3X more likely to be in the top quintile of financial performance and enjoy a 6X advantage in their ability to recruit and retain top talent.
In this high-impact keynote, top 20 ranked innovation expert, podcast host, and Founder of Outthinker, Kaihan Krippendorff shows how leaders can build capacity for enterprise-wide transformation and smart innovation. Using his proven IN-OVATE framework Kaihan offers a playbook for intrapreneurs to navigate barriers, overcome resistance, and take the initiative to drive transformation without quitting their job.
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We are experiencing a historic acceleration in the pace of change in our world. Artificial intelligence, digitization, robotics, 3D printing, climate change, political instability, deglobalization, and the rise of purpose-driven enterprises are reconfiguring how every conceivable industry operates. These changes are dividing us into two camps: the “Disruptors” and the “Disrupted”.
Kaihan Krippendorff, Founder of Outthinker, author, and podcast host has spent decades studying patterns of disruption. Thinkers50 and Global Gurus have recognized him as a top 20 management thinker globally for his strategic analysis of why some companies thrive, others fall behind, and the emerging approaches companies can use to create competitive advantage and transform continually.
Don’t underestimate the cost of standing still. Choose to Be the Disruptor with this engaging and practical keynote. Learn a proven design-thinking process to spark disruptive ideas and drive immediate results. Through entertaining stories of innovation — both successes and failures— your audience will leave inspired and armed with actionable tactics they can use right away.
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The greatest competitive threats — and the boldest growth opportunities — rarely come from your industry peers. They increasingly come from unexpected players applying ideas, new business models, and technologies outside of your industry.
Leaders excelling in today’s fast-moving world broaden their aperture, scanning across industries for patterns and practices that can be adapted to reduce their risk of disruption, cover blindspots, create efficiency, and unlock new growth. They use Outside-In Strategy.
Give your team a booster shot of Outside-In Strategic thinking with author, podcast host, and Founder of Outthinker, Kaihan Krippendorff. Drawing from decades of tracking and analysis of outperformers and 500+ annual conversations with CXOs from across industries – Kaihan will guide your team through a curated selection of strategic approaches, business models, and mindsets from outside your industry — the very ideas reshaping the global business landscape — to help you mitigate risk, solve problems, drive growth, and unlock efficincies that impact on your top and bottom line. Put Outside-In thinking into action with a proven process, tools, and frameworks developed with practitioners in mind.
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Today’s business environment rewards leaders who can think strategically, act with agility, and inspire their people to do the same. While many organizations focus on technology and innovation, the real differentiator is leadership — the ability to align, empower, and mobilize teams to act decisively amid uncertainty.
In this high-impact keynote, author, podcaster, and Founder of Outthinker, Kaihan Krippendorff shares how the most forward-thinking companies are developing leaders who continuously learn, adapt, and out-lead the competition. This inspiring talk crafted just for your audience draws insights from across Kaihan’s best-selling books (including Outthink the Competition, Driving, Innovation from Within, and Proximity), latest Harvard Business Review articles, and new research.
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Artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping every industry, redefining how we work, make decisions, and compete. Yet amid all the hype around data, platforms, and algorithms, one truth remains: people are the differentiator. From the boardroom to the front line, success in this new era depends on our ability to integrate technology’s power with human creativity, intuition, and strategic thinking.
In this forward-looking keynote, globally recognized business thinker, podcaster, and author Kaihan Krippendorff, offers insights and proven tools that you can use to make sense of AI and emerging technologies from both a top management perspective and a personal, day-to-day lens.
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Change is and will always be the only constant in business. As the pace of change accelerates more each day, businesses need to look ahead and create options to ensure their survival. Leaders must monitor and embrace AI, APIs automation, platform thinking, and intelligent predictive data systems while simultaneously managing regulatory shifts, global uncertainty, talent transformations, and sustainability imperatives.
In this trends keynote, futurist Kaihan Krippendorff outlines the critical trends, technologies, and strategic opportunities that will mark the coming years of business. Drawing on insights gathered from Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs) across diverse industries, decades of trend tracking, and ongoing research– Kaihan challenges leaders to not just sense the future but to shape it—calling for organizations to rethink how they allocate attention, build capability, create their next competitive advantage, and orchestrate partnerships.
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Kaihan Krippendorff is the founder of Outthinker, a global think-tank of chief strategy, innovation, growth, and transformation officers and executives from large public, private, and Fortune 500 companies.
A former McKinsey consultant and author of 6 books including bestsellers Outthink the Competition, Driving Innovation from Within, and Proximity, Kaihan is recognized by Thinkers50 and Global Gurus as one of the top 20 global management thinkers in strategy and innovation.
Known for rigorously researched tools and engaging programs, Kaihan is an innovation catalyst and sought-after strategic advisor for some of the world’s most recognizable companies including Aetna-CVS, JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Bank of America, Procter & Gamble, IBM, and Yahoo!. His work has created more than $3.0 billion in new annual recurring revenue.
Kaihan is also host of the Outthinkers podcast, The Chief Strategy Officer Podcast, and Strategy at Scale podcast.
His ideas are frequently published in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and other leading media outlets. He is a Senior Fellow at Wharton Business School and teaches strategy and innovation at NYU, Florida International University and other programs across the globe. He is an advisory board member of two tech startups.
Kaihan holds a doctorate in economics and business and engineering degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering, Wharton, Columbia Business School, and London Business School. With a mother from Bangladesh, father from Germany, and wife from Latin America, Kaihan is a global citizen who brings a holistic, diverse, and worldly perspective to everything he does.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus has said, “Kaihan shows that with a compelling idea anyone can change the world,” and that message has made Kaihan one of the most sought-after business speakers in the world.
Kaihan was on-point and relevant. His message is current for any organization wanting to grow. He did a great job of creating a working environment during his talk in which he outlined specific steps and a process to think differently. I had immediate take-aways.
Association of Northwestern Mutual
We really enjoyed working with Kaihan! His energy, topic, and being an outside speaker was really a breath of fresh air and the perfect fit for our audience! We loved the takeaways connected to our leadership pillars and how easy and flexible he was to work with to customize for the event.
Top 10 Aerospace & Defense Company
We recently had Kaihan speak at our annual winter meeting to our council members. Not only was Kaihan’s presentation the most thought provoking and inspiring aspect of our meeting he was an absolute pleasure to work with leading up to the event. Kaihan spent extra time listening to us to learn more about our industry. His passion and enthusiasm came across extremely well to our audience. I would highly recommend Kaihan for your next event.
ELECTRI International
The highlight of our event was undoubtedly our keynote speaker, Kaihan Krippendorff. His visionary strategies left us inspired and ready to take on any challenge that comes our way.
President, Amdocs Financial Services
Kaihan is a uniquely engaging speaker who energizes and inspires audiences. His cutting-edge ideas and hand-picked business examples make complex subjects simple while delivering the perfect balance of entertainment and deep insight. He was the highlight of our event.
President and Chief Investment Officer, Nuveen Private Investments
