Top rated!

Ade McCormack

Gain insights from Ade McCormack's unique blend of natural systems, neuroscience, and anthropology to navigate today's disrupted world.

Request price and availability Request price and availability

Non-binding request for Ade McCormack

Call us

+1 347 223 5128 +44 20 3744 5675

Even by video conference, Ade kept the audience captive with lots of note taking and it also provoked a lot of discussion after the event. One of the most compelling keynote speakers that we have had in the MED region.

Joanne Jones

EMEIA Operations, EY

Read all reviews

Why you should book speaker Ade McCormack:

Ade’s perspectives will resonate with your audience on what needs to change within both business and society as we leave the industrial age.
Your audience needs an ‘inspiring slap in the face’. With Ade, your audience will have a more profound sense of the challenges that lie ahead, but more importantly will feel uplifted by and empowered by Ade’s proposed way forward.
Ade’s content spans multiple disciplines including technology, neuroscience, anthropology, human performance, movement and cellular biology.

Unlock your organization's potential with Ade McCormack, founder of the Intelligent Leadership Hub. Ade delivers transformative insights to navigate today's unpredictable business landscape. Described as 'inspiring' and 'bracing,' he draws from diverse disciplines to craft innovative solutions. Book Ade now to revolutionize your approach to leadership and thrive in an uncertain world.

Read the full profile

Non-binding request for Ade McCormack

Keynotes

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: The future of work – Building the Human-centric organization

Centralized leadership and treating the workers as cogs in the machine are just two characteristics of the industrial era factory model. A model that many established organizations continue to embrace.
Consequently their response to threats and opportunities is somewhat arthritic and potentially fatal. Hence the urgent need for transformation.

Ironically, new technologies are stimulating the need for people as innovation cannot be elicited from an algorithm or robot. So the organization needs to be reengineered around the talent.

Audience takeaways:

Why cognition is so important to organizations in today’s unpredictable world.

Why harnessing the cognition of your talent is a win for all stakeholders.

How to migrate from treating your people as mindless cogs in the machine to self-actualizing
cognitive athletes.

How to plug the cognitive leaks and make substantial cognitive gains.

Request a quote

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: Transformation – How to build a super-resilient organization

The world is becoming increasingly uncertain and volatile. Organizations need to evolve from inert soulless factories to living, sensing, opportunistic organisms. Today it is less about winning and more
about ‘staying in the game’. But how can organizations transform given that many are optimized for less volatile times?

Audience takeaways:

How to build an organization that is emotionally, mentally and physically intelligent.

Harness the cognitive capacity lying dormant in your people.

Release the value trapped in your organization's data.

Create a culture of experimentation and innovation.

Request a quote

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: Leadership reset: How to lead in an increasingly unpredictable world

Accelerating market uncertainty is making it increasingly difficult to achieve lasting success. For sustained performance going forward, leaders must press the reset button NOW to unlearn the old ways of thinking and learn how to navigate their organisation through what is an increasingly unknowable environment.

In this session, you will:

Understand that applying ‘tech pixie dust’ to your organizational model is not enough.

Discover that in the digital age, your organization needs to operate like a living organism.

Recognise why assets increasingly trump profits.

Discover new concepts such as super-resilience, synthetic certainty and the cognitive gymnasium.

Recognise that we are entering a post-strategy world.

Understand how organisations such as Amazon and Google have structured themselves to adapt to an increasingly uncertain world.

Request a quote

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: Employee wellness – From cog to cognitive athlete

Centralised leadership and treating the workers as cogs in the machine are just two characteristics of the industrial era factory model. A model that many established organisations continue to embrace.
Consequently their response to threats and opportunities is somewhat arthritic and potentially fatal.
We need to harness the cognitive capacity of our people. This is a largely untapped asset. Cognition
lies at the heart of being human. We sense. We decide. We act. Organisations similarly need to
behave like living organisms.

Audience takeaways:

Why cognition is so important to organisations in today’s unpredictable world.

Why harnessing the cognition of your talent is a win for all stakeholders.

How to migrate from treating your people as mindless cogs in the machine to self-actualizing
cognitive athletes.

How to plug the cognitive leaks and make substantial cognitive gains.

Request a quote

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: Leadership – How to lead in a post-strategy world.

Industrial era leadership was straightforward. Build a factory around an idea and continuously refine the model by minimizing failure and improving efficiency. The problem is today that no amount of process refinement will offset the macro-environmental forces that are increasingly bearing down on the organization.

This requires a new type of leader. One that is comfortable with ambiguity and increasing uncertainty. Post-industrial era leaders know that innovation trumps process and they recognize
that failure is a critical part of the new model.

Audience takeaways:

Why the factory model is no longer fit for purpose.

What are the forces that have given rise to this challenge.

How leaders must adapt to be effective.

How organizations in turn need to adapt.

How to develop a more innovative culture.

Request a quote

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: Innovation – Turning human potential into market value

In a world where dominance or competitive advantage are transient at best, businesses need to make innovation central to their model. Increasingly fickle customers, coupled with markets emerging and dying overnight, will force the pace of innovation.
Innovation cannot be extracted from an algorithm or a robot, people are key. Thus smart organizations are discarding the factory model of the industrial era, where the worker was simply a cog in the machine, to one that turns human cognition into market-pleasing innovation.

Audience takeaways:

What are the forces driving this seismic shift.

How the world’s most successful companies are treating their people as if they are
(cognitive) athletes.

That getting the most out of your people is not the same as getting the best from them.

How to build your organization around your people.

Request a quote

Keynote by speaker Ade McCormack: Disruption – Why there is no post-covid, new normal nor even next normal

Disruption is on the increase. There is no post-covid, new normal or next normal. Abnormal and
increasing disruption is the backdrop to our lives going forward. Simply throwing new technology at
your old business model will not prepare it for what is an unknowable future.

Audience takeaways:

That digital and biology, in the form of Covid-19, are not the only forces at play.

Why the industrial era process-oriented approach to business is no longer fit for purpose.

How to build an organization that is less inert factory and more a living, sensing organism.

Why strategic planning is becoming a new genre of fiction.

Why acquiring and retaining the best people must be the organization's priority.

Request a quote

Customer Reviews

Joanne Jones EMEIA Operations, EY

Ade was a session chair at the Drucker Forum 2021 (Digital Forum Day).. on Human Hardware, Human Software: Is There Any Potential for Upgrades? In his moderation he succeeded to navigate the diverse perspective of world leading experts ranging from happiness studies, ethics of digital transformation to genetic evolution engineering and get to interesting conclusions for management and managers. The cross-discipline composition of the panel required a good understanding - not only of technology but psychology, biology and organization behavior. This is what Ade brought to the fore and thus contributed to the success of the Global Peter Drucker Forum 2021.

Richard Straub President, Global Peter Drucker Forum

We wanted someone who would engage our leadership differently. Ade did this brilliantly. Engaging, fast paced and multifaceted. Just what was needed to shake things up a little in the last session of our conference!

Helen McPhee VP Finance, Astra Zeneca

I had the pleasure of being part of recent, NASSCOM's seminar on, The “Future Of Work” Ade's presentation on 'Spotlight Leaders, are you hitting the reset button?'. Ade's message hit home like no other, succinct, inspiring, humorous and thought provoking! What hit home for me, is not designing strategies, on transformation but more, on operating on the variables of here and now. The leadership model, in the here and now needs to evolve into cognitive coaching to name a few! Thank you Ade. Keep inspiring!

Janine Nirmal Director of Operations, RRD

Ade was a guest speaker at one of the World Sustainability Collective’s events. <br>He shared his perspectives on intelligent leadership and why we need it. His presentation, and subsequent Q&A, was both hard hitting and inspiring. <br>Attendees appreciated that he viewed both the problem and the solution through a variety of lenses, including evolutionary biology, neuroscience and anthropology. Most importantly, he presented a path that very much has sustainability at its heart. I would strongly recommend Ade if you need to challenge your people in an engaging manner.

Bill Colquhoun World Sustainability Collective Founder, FRSA

Ade McCormack was our guest speaker in one of the key sessions during the Saint-Petersburg Labour Forum 2021. His contribution to the discussion on Motivation during Crisis was invaluable and our Russian experts learned a lot from him. Ade is a very pleasant professional to work with and all our communication run smoothly despite language barriers and long distance. We are extremely grateful and are looking forward to welcoming Ade in person in Saint-Petersburg.

Alina Nechaeva Head Of Project Office, Saint-Petersburg International Labour Forum

Thank you so much for an amazing presentation at our recent Human Resource Management Association of Jamaica (HRMAJ) Members Meeting on 'Digital and biological disruption...the future of both work and talent.'<br><br>We are still getting feedback from our members about how good it was and the members who missed it are expressing their regret. It was a complete wow and very thought provoking! You deliver world class quality everytime!

Melissa Anderson HR Manager, BU Jamaica & Caribbean at J. Wray and Nephew Limited

Ade McCormack

Adaptive Leadership for Uncertain Times

As a keynote speaker, Ade McCormack is known for his ability to provide actionable strategies that help organizations adapt and thrive in an increasingly complex and unpredictable environment. With a background as a former technologist turned leadership advisor, Ade brings a unique perspective to the table. His experiences working with some of the world's most prominent brands across forty countries have equipped him with invaluable insights into what it takes to succeed in today's global marketplace.

Ade McCormack is founder of the Intelligent Leadership Hub. His focus lies in helping organisations adapt to an increasingly unknowable world. He has been described as ‘an inspiring slap in the face’ and ‘delightfully bracing’.

When you book Ade McCormack for your event, you're not just getting a speaker – you're gaining access to a wealth of knowledge and expertise. Ade's engaging presentations set the tone for transformative conversations, inspiring leaders to rethink outdated practices and embrace innovative solutions. Whether he's sharing his insights at MIT Sloan or collaborating with Cambridge University on leadership development, Ade's impact is undeniable.

Don't miss the opportunity to bring Ade McCormack's transformative message to your organization. Book Ade for your event and empower your team to navigate the challenges of today's business world with confidence and clarity.