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Diana Kander

Speaker Featured

Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Fostering Curiosity in Organizations for Exponential Growth

A New York Times best-selling author and innovation consultant, Diana Kander has spent her career challenging assumptions and asking big questions – what kind of culture needs to exist in an organization to ensure innovative ideas and practices? How has Snoop Dogg continued to innovate decade after decade to stay relevant to the next generation? What causes name brands to lose relevance with their customers and go out of business? A serial entrepreneur who entered the United States as a refugee at the age of 8, she has launched and sold millions of dollars’ worth of products and services. Her first book, All In Startup, has been used by over 100 universities in their innovation courses and countless large organizations to help their employees think more like entrepreneurs. Her second book, The Curiosity Muscle walks readers through a methodology to keep curiosity alive and thriving inside of an organization, ultimately, future-proofing the business.

US Speakers Business & Workplace Innovation & Change Management

In the News

Diana Kander in the media January 1, 2025

Keynote Speeches

Unleash Your Curiosity

For All Company Meetings

In today’s ever-changing business climate, your attendees’ roles have evolved far past their job descriptions. They face a volatile external environment – they encounter pressure to stay relevant to customers – they experience challenging workforce issues – and they are being asked to do a lot more with a lot less. All of this is asking them to be innovators. The big question is, are they doing it the hard way or the easy way. 

Based on her book, The Curiosity Muscle, this keynote helps members of organizations who don’t have innovation in their job description to embrace and identity as an innovator. Diana will share the key skills and habits that make innovation easier and a lot more fun. And she’ll empower attendees to harness the power of curiosity to unlock new possibilities and drive business growth. Attendees will leave this keynote identifying as innovators and seeking opportunities to use their new skills.

ROI & Key Outcomes:

  • How to institutionalize curiosity, asking better questions to stay competitive and
    relevant to your customers
  • How to determine blind spots within your organization and avoid falling into the “expert
    trap”
  • How to create a more innovative culture that leads to results and drives growth
Innovate to Sell: Unlock Your Sales Potential with Curiosity and Focus

This high-energy keynote is designed to equip sales teams with the tools and mindset to drive results in today’s fast-changing marketplace. Using principles from Diana’s book Get Curious & Grow, this session will help your sales team:

  1. Prioritize What Matters Most: Master the 1-10 Filter to identify and focus on the most impactful sales opportunities while eliminating distractions. Learn to say “no” to what doesn’t drive results and “yes” to what truly matters.
  2. Eliminate the Noise: Use the Kill the Zombies framework to hunt down and remove low-value activities, outdated processes, and unnecessary meetings that drain your energy and time.
  3. Reimagine Your Approach: Tap into the power of the Blank Sheet Method to break free from traditional sales strategies and imagine new, innovative ways to connect with clients and close deals.
  4. Learn from Successes: Discover how to use the Learn from the Wins habit to identify patterns in your successes, refine your strategies, and continually improve your sales performance.

Attendees will leave this session inspired and equipped with practical tools to innovate their approach, deepen client relationships, and exceed their sales targets.

Audience reviews:

  • It was truly our pleasure having Diana Kander with us. Our organization received her message so positively. I hear references to Diana’s keynote every other day in my interactions with my PRiMe Group colleagues. She really made a mark with our organization, and her thought leadership is making an impact and reverberating across our broader organization. - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York
  • Shortly before the pandemic, Diana spoke to our organization. I think one of the profound things she encouraged us to do was eradicate the zombies. We very quickly adopted many of her practices to address old ways of doing things and used her methodology to bring new ideas to life. Her concepts and tools allowed our health system to stay ahead of the pandemic and have one of the best responses in the nation. I would strongly recommend Diana for any keynote or leadership engagement you are thinking about. - Vice President, Cox Health
  • Thank you! I also have to tell you that your book has been a big hit! I am working the Peer Insights booth and our reviews were through the roof yesterday after your Keynote, we went through several cases of books in less than an hour and people are still asking for your book! I am a meeting planner so I have seen lots of Keynote speakers and very few have had an impact as much as yours has on this group. Keep up the good work and keep improving yourself, whatever you are doing is working! - Gartner
  • I attended your presentation today and am very enthused and encouraged by your ideas. Your talk was very thought provoking and you are a gifted presenter and I really enjoyed your content/material and found multiple items that I could begin applying immediately that can improve my daily work. I was very intrigued with your concepts and approach! - Hallmark Cards, Inc.
  • Diana was an absolute ROCK STAR!! Her message was spot on, very well received and the group loved her. Thank you for recommending her to join our event. She certainly helped make our inaugural Women’s event a success! - Executive Vice President, MCA of Metropolitan Washington
  • During Diana's two-year engagement with H&R Block as the Entrepreneur-In-Residence, Diana helped us identify the organizational challenges slowing down innovation and mentored both myself and our product owners to develop habits that significantly increased our speed of innovation and our understanding of how to create value for customers. Diana's influence impacted everything from how we listened to customers, how we thought about pilots and experimentation, how we found opportunities for innovation, how we minimized bias in the innovation process, and the power of constraints to create better products. - Chief Innovation Officer, H&R Block
  • Thanks again for taking the time to get to know our clients and delivering valuable content tailored to our group. I know a couple of them are interested in potentially contracting you in the future. That’s the largest compliment you can receive! - Event Planner, RBC
  • Diana spoke at one of our recent Leaders Conferences. We received many positive comments about her message and engaging speaking style. I would highly recommend Diana to any organization who wants a speaker who has lived the life of an entrepreneur and can communicate in a relevant and humorous way what it takes to start a business and be successful. - Assurity Life Insurance Company
  • I wanted to let you know how impactful your virtual session “Where Do Great Ideas Come From?” was for me. Your message was clear, concise, and relatable, not just from a comprehension perspective, but from an actionable one. I’ve always considered myself a “problem solver”, but this immediately pointed out that I might not always be solving the best problem, and that considering a handful of additional options would significantly improve the quality of ideas. This has changed the way I view “problems” and has really provided a new framework for handling all issues. Thank you for your work and contribution! - Senior Analyst Legal Generalist, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
  • Diana Kander’s All in Startup and the training that she provided my product management team contains the principles that can make a significant impact on our organization’s business results. My team really enjoyed the hands on interaction with Diana and the mentoring that she provided. The level of engagement from Diana made it really meaningful and much more personal. Most importantly the training has provided a roadmap for transforming our business into a more entrepreneurial company. - Perceptive Software / Lexmark

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Speaker Books

The Curiosity Muscle
The Curiosity Muscle
All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line
All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When...
Go Big or Go Home: 5 Ways to Create a Customer Experience That Will Close the Deal
Go Big or Go Home: 5 Ways to...

Speaker Biography

Diana Kander revolutionizes the way businesses look at innovation and curiosity. A New York Times best-selling author, innovation consultant and keynote speaker, she asks some big questions. What kind of culture needs to exist in an organization to ensure innovative ideas and practices? How has Snoop Dogg continued to innovate decade after decade to stay relevant to the next generation? What causes name brands to lose relevance with their customers and go out of business? Can organizational decline be prevented?

Diana has spent her career challenging assumptions and asking thought-provoking questions. A serial entrepreneur who entered the United States as a refugee at the age of 8, she has launched and sold millions of dollars worth of products and services. She outlined her biggest lessons learned for launching new products in her first book, All In Startup, which has been used by over 100 universities in their innovation courses and countless large organizations to help their employees think more like entrepreneurs. A former MBA professor at Mizzou, she has served as an entrepreneur in residence at H&R Block, Commerce Bank and several government agencies.

Diana’s second book, The Curiosity Muscle explains why it’s harder to stay at the top than it was to get there. The book documents Diana’s consulting experience with large organizations and demonstrates why most companies who experience significant success can so easily get comfortable, lose their curiosity and crash into irrelevance. The book walks readers through a methodology to keep curiosity alive and thriving inside of an organization, ultimately, future-proofing the business.

Fun fact about Diana: She likes to use her curiosity methodology to push herself out of her own comfort zone and achieve big personal challenges each year. Despite having never completed a pull-up prior to 2021, she raised over $26,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City by doing 5,000 pull-ups that year.

Diana lives in Kansas City, Missouri with Jason, her high-school sweetheart and husband, their son, True and daughter, Bella Brave.

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