NSB Logo Geoff Colvin Geoff Colvin

Geoff Colvin

Speaker

Stamford, Connecticut, USA

Bestselling Author & Senior Editor-at-Large, Fortune Magazine

Geoff Colvin is an award-winning thinker, author, broadcaster, and speaker on the most significant trends and issues impacting business and the economy. As Fortune magazine’s senior editor-at-large, Geoff has an insider’s perspective fueled by long-standing relationships with the world’s top leaders in business and government.  He knows what they’re seeing, thinking, and planning and reveals how they’re leading, making choices, and responding to today’s challenges in ways that others can learn from.

Keynote Speeches

Virtual Keynotes & Webinars
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Confronting the Reality of Change

When change comes at us from every direction, it can feel like our only option is to play defense. “Not so,” says Geoff Colvin of Fortune. “The best leaders I’ve reported on have found ways to embrace a world of continuous disruption and build a powerful competitive advantage in the process.” Geoff is optimistic about the future as he unpacks step-by-step how we can all respond faster to change and even get ahead of it as individuals, teams, and enterprises. Geoff provides actionable takeaways to help leaders face change smarter:

  • What the best leaders and companies are doing right now to create the future
  • Why confronting reality faster is the key to seizing new opportunities
  • Biggest pandemic lessons for business
  • Scenario planning: surviving bad times begins with better decisions in good times
  • 3 best ways to lead during crisis and disruption
  • Creativity and innovation – how to unleash it individually and organizationally
Risks & Opportunities in this Economy

Global turmoil has roiled an already fragile economic order in ways that are still unfolding. At Fortune, Geoff tells the economic story in terms that focus on the risks and opportunities. Business people already know the numbers – what they might miss is the big picture; the forces driving the trends causing disruptive change in their world and, most importantly, what to do about it. This presentation isn’t a stream of economic statistics; it’s an optimistic story that Geoff tells engagingly, humorously, and memorably with valuable takeaways because, as he says, “Even in tough times, somebody’s going to win, why not you?” 

Geoff covers:

  • Why, even in times like this, it’s vital to remain optimistic
  • The latest data and trends curated for the audience/industry he’s addressing
  • A plain-spoken explanation of what’s going on now – on Main Street, Wall Street, in Washington, and globally.
  • How successful companies are winning in this economy
Future-Proof Your Business Model

Four big trends are causing business leaders angst as they confront the idea that their business model needs to change. In this talk, Geoff Colvin looks at how the economic climate, advancements in tech, global and domestic politics, and workers are moving to render many business models obsolete. As a result, business model innovation has become a must-have competence for all companies. That’s a problem for those that are unprepared but a huge opportunity for those who are paying attention and taking this challenge seriously. Geoff reveals:

  • Inspiring examples of companies transforming their business model and winning
  • Key trends driving the need for business model change
  • How to just do it: Stop protecting yesterday and start creating the future
  • The secrets to becoming a business model innovator
  • How to adapt to a friction-free economy and create outsized opportunities
  • Why human capital is the most valuable kind and how to make the most of it
Learning from the World's Greatest Leaders

Through his work at Fortune, Geoff Colvin has seen top business leaders up close. Over the years, he’s gotten to know many of those leaders well. Watching them and talking with them has revealed eye-opening insights into how they cope with change, wrestle with transforming their companies, and face the economic, competitive, technological, and political forces buffeting their businesses. Geoff unpacks their stories in this talk uniquely crafted for each audience, showing relevant lessons learned from leaders and companies we all know. This talk can focus on several themes:

  • The crucial process of making tough decisions
  • Finding and keeping great employees
  • Navigating regulatory uncertainty
  • Adopting new technology
  • Managing in a crisis
  • Leading cultural change

Platform Plus Presentations

Unique formats and ways to connect with audiences.
Panel Moderator, Discussion Leader, Emcee/Host
Geoff Colvin’s unique gift is his ability to brilliantly moderate panels, lead onstage interviews, and host/emcee. He’s played these roles for more than three decades at Fortune conferences worldwide. Top companies and associations regularly utilize Geoff because he gets the most out of participants; he asks the right questions, listens intently to what’s being said on stage, and responds to that. He also connects ideas and insights across sessions, transforming a multi-part program into a satisfying, unified whole. He always keeps the discussion relevant and the energy high.

Audience reviews:

  • Geoff turned in two outstanding performances for Commonfund. His grasp of business issues is second to none and his engaging style consistently pulls the best comments from our panelists. What more could one ask? But actually Geoff delivers more without our asking. He is one of the most genuinely respectful and caring people on the speaking circuit. And despite his vast business knowledge and superior interviewing skill, he hasn’t a trace of ego.

    - Producer, Lovett Productions
  • Once again your stewardship of the business sessions opened the door for a truly interactive and valuable dialogue for everyone. Your depth of understanding of the challenges these companies are facing and the opportunities that lie ahead added tremendously to our conversations.

    - CEO, Cisco
  • No surprise, Geoff was articulate and insightful, thoughtful on global and fiscal issues affecting industry and candid on impressions of leadership. Not to mention, a wonderful man who I will forever be indebted to.

    - CEO, The Elliot Group
  • He was amazing! One of the best we've had . . . executives loved him as well as students, and he was so inspirational to our student group - they are a hard audience, and rallied around his message on Talent is Overrated.

    - Director of Executive Learning and Marketing, Belmont University
  • You helped to draw out important insights from our speakers and deliver tremendous value to our audience. We at IBM value the perspectives you brought to our session and appreciate the time you spent with us. Thank you again for making our event a priority.

    - IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Speaker Biography

Now in his fourth decade at Fortune, Geoff Colvin’s breadth of experience is impressive.  He is one of business journalism’s sharpest and most respected commentators on leadership, management, globalization, regulation, corporate governance, competition, the economy, human performance and related issues. Geoff’s regular column and frequent cover stories in Fortune have earned him millions of loyal readers. The big takeaway is that winning companies and leaders summon the courage to act – they stop protecting the past and start inventing the future – and they confront this reality faster than the competition. As business leaders face their biggest challenge ever, Geoff is the voice of experience who shines a light – revealing a clearer path for an uncertain future.

Geoff dispenses critical business insights on the CBS Radio Network, reaching seven million listeners weekly. He has appeared on Today, The O’Reilly Factor, Good Morning America, Squawk Box, CBS This Morning, ABC’s World News Tonight, CNN, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, and dozens of other programs. He served as anchor of Wall Street Week with Fortune on PBS, and spoke each week to the largest audience reached by any business television program in America.

As a keynote speaker, Geoff has a knack for bringing clarity to the most important and complex issues impacting business and the economy.  He has spoken for scores of corporate and association conferences on six continents including dozens of high level Fortune conferences.  His speeches pull together timely insights and strategies and are tailored to deliver relevant insights that help leaders understand what the future holds. 

In addition to speaking, Geoff is also a brilliant panel moderator, emcee, and interviewer whose subjects have included Janet Yellen, Henry Kissinger, and Jack Welch.  

Geoff is a respected author whose groundbreaking international bestseller, Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, has been published in a dozen languages. The Upside of the Downturn: Management Strategies for Difficult Times was named “Best Management Book of the Year” by Strategy + Business magazine. Geoff’s latest book, Humans are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will, is based on the idea in his wildly popular article in the 2014 Fortune 500 issue – “In The Future Will There Be Any Work Left for People to Do?” It looks at the trend of technology displacing more jobs than it creates and the ways humans will create value for their organizations and their careers in the changing economy. The ideas he shares have profound implications for every business and industry.

A native of Vermillion, South Dakota, Geoff Colvin is an honors graduate of Harvard with a degree in economics and has an M.B.A. from New York University.