Nathan Furr

Most executives don't need more AI hype — they need results. The reality is that the vast majority of generative AI initiatives fail to create meaningful business value because companies fall into three predictable traps that can be avoided with the right leadership approach. Drawing on research into how established companies are successfully applying AI, Nathan Furr distills the three pillars of real AI transformation: a clear strategy, the right organizational design, and disciplined experimentation. This keynote gives senior leaders practical steps to unlock value, avoid costly missteps, and lead their organizations through the AI revolution with confidence. As an optional complement, Furr also introduces the AI Business Value Framework — a set of pragmatic questions leaders can use to lay strong foundations for successful AI adoption in their own organizations.

Although we are wired to fear uncertainty, great leaders, innovators, and changemakers recognize that uncertainty always holds possibility. Learning to develop the perspective and skills to be resilient in the face of uncertainty — and then lead others to new possibilities — is key to great leadership. In this engaging presentation, INSEAD Professor Nathan Furr reveals that the most important, and often missing, skill for bolstering organizational resilience is the ability to confidently lead through change and uncertainty. Drawing from his bestselling book The Upside of Uncertainty, Furr presents a comprehensive, customizable toolkit and strategies for delivering calm, reassuring leadership through challenging times that help reduce employee burnout and build lasting organizational durability. Audiences develop 'uncertainty capability,' becoming more adaptable, creative, agile, and better able to strategically pivot.

Creating transformative change in established companies may be the hardest task leaders face, especially in a time of digital disruption from rapidly emerging technologies. As the rise of AI tools continues to accelerate the pace of disruption across virtually every industry, immense uncertainty has followed. In this eye-opening presentation, Nathan Furr provides leaders with clear-eyed approaches for taking the anxiety out of AI-focused digital transformation. Replacing the fear factor with a focused, fact-based approach to actionable value creation, he shows how the transformation process is much more attainable than many realize. With a framework for anticipating and recognizing when new technologies pose a threat and how to respond in order to profit from them, Furr helps leaders get onboard with testing AI tools, learning from those tests, and bringing their organizations forward during the transformation journey.

Growth through innovation is a powerful way to find new opportunities and increase the value of an organization. Drawing on decades of research into how the world's most innovative organizations create and profit from new opportunities, Nathan Furr draws on his book The Innovator's Method to teach audiences how to apply tools like lean startup, design thinking, and business model transformation to build innovation capability and foster a culture that creates significant growth. Furr brings these concepts to life with real-world examples and interactive frameworks that participants can apply to their own goals and challenges immediately.

How do great innovators come up with new ideas and create opportunities in an era of increasing uncertainty and intense competition? Having identified the behaviors of the world's greatest leaders — from Amazon and Apple to Google, Skype, and beyond — Nathan Furr outlines the skills that distinguish the extraordinary from the ordinary. He also discusses how to create and lead a culture of innovation throughout an entire organization, an advantage that improves an organization's innovation premium and spurs real growth. Drawing on decades of research into collaborative innovation, Furr teaches how organizations and leaders in any sector can apply these insights and tools to solve problems and create new opportunities.

The world's most valuable businesses are platforms, and platform-based businesses consistently outperform traditional product-based business models. Yet most firms still offer products and services without platforms. Drawing on years of research into transformational models, Nathan Furr shares strategies for converting a product or service business into a platform model so companies can multiply the value of their resources. He explains why platforms offer non-platform firms a chance to become more efficient, agile, and profitable, and shares what it takes to make the leap from traditional business models to platform-powered growth.