Rohit Bhargava

Non-Obvious Thinking: How To See What Others Miss

How can you learn to be more innovative and creative in a noisy world? Inspired by a combination of more than 15 years of trend analysis and hundreds of workshops taught to some of the most pioneering groups in the world from NASA to Disney, this keynote will reveal a proven four-step method to having better ideas, inspiring more creativity and being more innovative every day. Attendees will also get an inside look at how to curate trends.

This program will help leaders and teams:

• Understand their future customers and how they can prepare their business to serve needs those customers haven’t demanded yet, but will one day.
• Broaden their perspective outside their industry and embrace a mindset that truly allows them to so take ideas from many sectors and expertly apply them to their own roles and business.

The audience will leave with:

• Four actionable and immediately usable habits they can integrate into their daily lives to broaden their perspective, be more creative, and see the world differently.
• A better understanding of what trends are, what they aren’t, why they matter and how they can start to identify trends and patterns of behavior for themselves.

7 Non-Obvious Trends Shaping the Future Normal

What does it take to identify world changing trends that will actually last? For the past decade, Rohit Bhargava and Henry Coutinho-Mason have been on the front lines of the future—going into cutting-edge labs, private testing facilities, and invite-only showcases around the world. Now for the first time ever, this exclusive talk will reveal the most powerful stories and instigators that are already shaping humanity’s next decade. From biophilic skyscrapers to generative AI to haptic interfaces, this keynote will offer a clear-eyed overview of not only the technology changing our world, but also explore the deeply human questions all this advancement will raise. Rather than offering “futurist theater” with obvious forgettable examples, this talk is updated with new stories (sometimes pulled from that morning’s news!), a charismatic delivery style, and interactive exercises to deliver a memorable experience for any size audience. This is not a boring academic talk. Instead, it's a pull-no-punches, always entertaining, constantly surprising, highly actionable (and deeply non-obvious!) glimpse into what the future will look like ... and how each of us can train ourselves to anticipate big shifts before they happen.

This program will help leaders and teams:

• Create a strategy to take their organization into the future and navigate significant change or disruption either through industry shifts, restructures, pandemic effects and/or new leadership.
• Gain exposure to cutting edge ideas and technologies (as well as the innovators behind them) that can help inform new initiatives and products.

The audience will leave with:

• A greater understanding of the fundamental forces of disruption that are shifting consumer behavior and beliefs across industries and what this means for them.
• A roadmap of relevant innovations and advances that can help to shape strategic planning and current efforts around building products and services for existing and future potential customers. for existing and future potential customers.

The Art of Non-Obvious Marketing (in a Skeptical World)

We are living in a time when it is harder to earn trust than ever before. People skip ads, mistrust brands and demand transparency from the companies they buy from or work for. What does it take for any organization to be more believable? To win in a low-trust world, you need to be more human. This funny and insightful keynote from award-winning marketing expert Rohit Bhargava will reveal the five keys to earning attention in a world filled with distractions. Whether you are looking to shift perceptions, improve sales or simply inject more breakthrough thinking in your current efforts, this talk will help. Through a digestible collection of entertaining case studies and unusual observations, Rohit will shine a spotlight on what actually works to command attention, build loyalty and generate real results. Most importantly, the audience will leave with some real practical advice they can use immediately to put the power of non-obvious thinking to work every day.

This program will help leaders and teams:

• Align a team across departments with a shared understanding of branding, positioning, marketing, storytelling, and what part everyone plays in shaping the organization’s perception in the marketplace.
• Articulate why storytelling matters and make the task of storytelling more approachable and realistic for everyone to engage with in their daily roles.
• Build a culture of trust within the organization and improve employee retention by inspiring a team to have more belief in the work they do and the leaders who lead them

The audience will leave with:

• Understanding the key principles of storytelling and how to apply them in a business context to improve communications and be more persuasive.
• Insights on how trust is earned and lost in the middle of our modern “believability crisis” and techniques anyone can use to be more trustworthy and believable.
• A leadership model for establishing more authenticity and trust among teams that can be replicated at all levels of the organization.

The Non-Obvious Method To Leading Diversity (When It’s Not Your Day Job) How Leaders Can Make Diversity and Inclusion Happen

This keynote offers an approachable introduction to diversity and inclusion for busy leaders. Inspired by the world’s most ambitious gathering of diversity experts at the Beyond Diversity Summit and the WSJ bestselling book Beyond Diversity, this talk is specifically for leaders who don’t spend all day working on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Instead of blaming and shaming or focusing on a long list of “- isms,” this optimistic keynote candidly approaches some of the biggest myths and realities of diversity while offering practical suggestions to actually build a more inclusive and diverse team.

This program will help leaders and teams:

• Understanding why building a more diverse and inclusive world matters and what is driving the current conversation and cultural demand for this to be a priority for all companies
• Put DEI efforts into context and understand what matters most when it comes to creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace and company culture
• Shift away from “blaming and shaming” and instead approach the topic of DEI from a place of positivity and optimism to help everyone shift their thinking without feeling forced or minimized in the process

The audience will leave with:

• A shared sense of purpose for why DEI matters and how to adapt their current workplace or business practices to be more inclusive and equitable.
• How to better identify instances of unconscious bias or unintentional discrimination and correct these moments or the policies that enable them.