Rita Gunther McGrath

Globally Recognized Strategist, Speaker, Bestselling Author, and Professor at Columbia Business School, chosen as a Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coach

Rita McGrath, one of the world’s top experts on strategy and innovation, is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world by the prestigious Thinkers50 and won their #1 award in strategy. The best-selling author of 5 books on leadership, business and organizational management, she runs the Rita McGrath Group and is the founder of consultancy and innovation platform Valize. She is a trusted partner and strategic advisor in the C-suites of many of the country’s biggest and most well-known companies – especially as they work to grow, evolve, reinvent themselves and see around corners. Rita is known for her energy, positivity, storytelling, and ability to connect with audiences. She is also a sought-after corporate speaker, a long-time educator at Columbia Business School, the author and host of the popular podcast and newsletter Thought Sparks, available on Youtube.

Rita Gunther McGrath Keynote Speaker Fee Fee range is for U.S. events, depending on location and organization type
$50,001 and above
Languages Spoken
English
Travels From
New York, USA

Rita Gunther McGrath Keynote Speaker Fee Fee range is for U.S. events, depending on location and organization type
$50,001 and above
Languages Spoken
English
Travels From
New York, USA

Keynote Speaker Topics

Change Management Keynote Speakers
Entrepreneur Keynote Speakers
Harvard Business Speakers
Innovation Keynote Speakers
Leadership Keynote Speakers
Management Keynote Speakers
Strategy Keynote Speakers
The Thinkers50 Motivational Speakers
Women in Business Speakers

Suggested Keynote Speaker Programs

Seeing Around Corners

Strategic Inflection points happen gradually, then suddenly. Armed with the right lenses, you can see them coming.

Snow Melts from the Edges

8 provocative questions to ask senior leaders at risk of being isolated from critical information at the “edges” of their organizations.

Discovery Driven Planning

The revolutionary technique for planning under conditions of high uncertainty that was the basis for the “lean startup” movement.

Creating an Early Warning System

A thought-provoking approach to spotting the leading indicators of big changes.

Innovation Should Not Be a Mystery

Innovation can be a reliable, repeatable process — but only if you use the right tools.

Learning to Live with Complexity

Complicated systems are predictable. Complex ones aren’t. The two require different approaches.

Manage Your Portfolio, Manage Your Growth

How to build a portfolio that delivers results today while bullet-proofing your future.

Failing by design

How to re-imagine your organization’s view of failure to foster experimentation and learning through “intelligent” failures.

The End of Competitive Advantage & the New Strategy Playbook

Because conventional approaches to strategy no longer work.

3 approaches to creating customer insight

Segmentation, consumption chain analysis and attribute mapping are reliable ways of generating actionable insights.

Speed, stealth and selective attack

Competitive strategies that work against incumbents and that can prompt your competitor to react in ways that suit you.

The Permissionless organization

Organizations that can push decision rights to the edges and move fast will always beat bureaucracies that move too slowly.

How to make a rainmaker

It used to be that becoming a trusted advisor was enough to keep and grow clients. No more – meet the “activators” – a new role for business development in professional services firms.

Positive politics for organizational change

We tend to think of office politics in negative terms. But you can’t avoid politics if you want to create change – welcome to a talk on the power of positive politics.

The transfer of wealth to women: a looming inflection point.

By 2030, $30 trillion in wealth will be in the hands of women. This has huge implications for business, philanthropy and investing – this talk explores some that everyone should be aware of.

Creating and communicating your personal vision – how to be seen as strategic

Creating and communicating your personal vision – how to be seen as strategic. Women rate well on most leadership characteristics with one exception – they often are not seen as “strategic.” This talk explores where women go wrong and provides remedies.

It’s not about “fixing” the women - creating gender balanced workplaces

The rise of women to positions of power has been breathtaking. But all too often organizations fail to capitalize on their potential because they apply the wrong mental models – it isn’t about being gender blind, it’s about being gender bilingual.

Custom Topic

Create your own topic and Rita and her team are happy to work with you on a bespoke topic or workshop for your group.

About Keynote Speaker Rita Gunther McGrath

Rita McGrath, one of the world’s top experts on strategy and innovation, is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world by the prestigious Thinkers50 and won their #1 award in strategy. She is a trusted partner and strategic advisor in the C-suites of many of the country’s biggest and most well-known companies – especially as they work to grow, evolve, reinvent themselves and see around corners.

She is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on strategic inflection points, the topic of her most recent book – Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). She is the author of 4 other books on leadership, business and organizational management including the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Her work on discovery-driven growth was praised by the late legendary management thinker Clayton Christensen as offering “some of the most important ideas of management and strategy that have ever been developed.” She is currently working on a book full of humor and insight for business leaders aimed at helping organizations become ‘2% less stupid’ by adopting permissionless structures.

Questions? Contact Us Any Time:

805.965.1400

info@bigspeak.com

Rita regularly sits down for in-depth conversations with high level authors and leaders in business for her popular podcast Thought Sparks. She also writes a regular Thought Sparks newsletter and shares insights across social media platforms, including LinkedIn, where she has more than 45,000 followers.

Rita is known for her energy, positivity, storytelling, and ability to connect with audiences. She is also a sought-after corporate speaker, a long-time educator at Columbia Business School, the author and host of the popular podcast and newsletter Thought Sparks, available on YouTube.

Testimonials

“I found Rita’s topic very relevant to our industry and her presentation very concise. At my invitation, Rita was our keynote speaker at our Annual Convention with an audience of about 350 luxury hoteliers and executives from around the world. Rita did a great job of getting the message across in 45 minutes, as she is a great speaker and connects well with the audience. Rita speaks from her heart and does not use notes. It is very conversational. In our post-event survey, Rita’s presentation was ranked the highest of all external speakers.”

Ted Tang

President & CEO, Leading Hotels of the World

“Rita’s keen insights into strategy building—and avoiding creative destruction—were a perfect fit with our conference focus. Based on continuing feedback this evening, my leaders especially connected with her messages about rethinking assumptions and asking ourselves the necessary provocative questions.”

Esat Sezer

Senior VP and CIO, Coca-Cola Enterprises

“Rita is a delight to work with. Incredibly sharp, very thoughtful, personable and highly organized – I have yet to meet another speaker who carries their own clicker, a spare clicker, spare batteries for the spare clicker… She is genuinely interested in her audience, her material is absolutely world-class and she enjoys and excels at Q&A. Rita’s opening talk was a great way to set up this year’s Business of Software Conference, her material both stimulating and directed at the needs and interests of the group. Brilliant minds aren’t always the easiest ones to work with, Rita is a shining exception. I would add her voice is so calm and authoritative that Rita should think about a second career doing satellite navigation voices.”

Mark Littlewood

Business of Software, produced by the Business Leaders Network

Books

Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen

Learn More

The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business