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Motivating keynotes on change & building trust

Mark DeVolder

travels from Canada

Change Specialist and top-rated speaker known to share knowledge on change, engagement, and leadership.

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5 out of 5 stars

Mark was terrific! The day exceeded my expectations! We are already actively using his information around engagement to develop a new communication infrastructure and process for the Department.

Dr. Herbert Zeh, Chair of Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center See all references

Why you should book Dr. Mark DeVolder for next event

  • He’s an original thinker and motivator on transition management. Mark has guided some of the most high-stake transitions of recent history: preparing Colombian business leaders for the NAFTA Free Trade Agreement, aiding in the wrap up of the NASA space shuttle program, and coaching multiple companies through multi-billion dollar mergers and acquisitions.
  • His work speaks volumes. Speaker Dr. Mark DeVolder has a proven track record of 95 % success in his licensed mediator agitation. With outstanding numbers, Mark demonstrates the company enhancement.
  • He is influential with actionable takeaways.  Mark dedicated his career to equipping and motivating leaders to harness the hurricane of change. Today it shows as he drives companies into success in the long run.
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Discover the ultimate solution for navigating disruption and embracing change. Dr. Mark DeVolder, a renowned Global Change Management Expert and Transition Thought-Leader, empowers leaders worldwide with his proven strategies. From coaching NASA rocket scientists to transforming safety cultures in the oil industry, Mark's insights are unparalleled. Partner with Mark to equip your team with the tools for success amidst market disruptions. Experience the transformative power of Empowered Change™ with the award-winning speaker, Dr. Mark DeVolder.

Why you should book Dr. Mark DeVolder for next event

  • He’s an original thinker and motivator on transition management. Mark has guided some of the most high-stake transitions of recent history: preparing Colombian business leaders for the NAFTA Free Trade Agreement, aiding in the wrap up of the NASA space shuttle program, and coaching multiple companies through multi-billion dollar mergers and acquisitions.
  • His work speaks volumes. Speaker Dr. Mark DeVolder has a proven track record of 95 % success in his licensed mediator agitation. With outstanding numbers, Mark demonstrates the company enhancement.
  • He is influential with actionable takeaways.  Mark dedicated his career to equipping and motivating leaders to harness the hurricane of change. Today it shows as he drives companies into success in the long run.

Dr. Mark DeVolder is a Global Change Management Expert, Transition & Transformation Thought-Leader and Award Winning Speaker. With a vast client list, Mark has spoken in over 25 countries on 5 continents to many of the world’s industry-leading companies. His insights and strategies show leaders how to navigate the transitions of disruption.

Mark’s client list is extensive and diverse, covering many sectors including: NASA, Royal Bank of Canada, McDonald’s, Qatar Petroleum, PepsiCo Europe, Verizon, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kuwait Finance House, Medtronic, UT Southwestern Medical Center, FEMSA Mexico, Idaho National Laboratory, Estonian HR Association, Oman Air, GE, Charles Schwab, Marriott, Siemens, and many more.

Partnering with his clients gives Mark a laser-focused view into disruptions that are occurring in every industry and organization; With that insight and customized research, Dr. Mark teaches the unique strategy of Empowered Change™, equipping leaders to adapt to and embrace their greatest challenges, trends and opportunities, such as mergers, organizational restructure, digital
transformation and market disruptions.

Mark DeVolder is an award-winning speaker and recipient of the Top 10 Speaker Award in Change Management. Mark is known for his highly engaging presentations: contagious energy, on-target customization, strong actionable takeaways and captivating audience interaction.

As a researcher, consultant and author, Mark has written the multi-disciplinary book on managing change, Perpetual Pivot: How the Best Leaders Adapt to Exponential Change, as well
as books on Diversity/Inclusion and Employee Engagement: Unity in Diversity Through Synergy and Get Engaged!

Above all, Mark DeVolder is a category of one speaker. Mark knows change. He knows why we fear it and how we get lost within it. And he knows how to help leaders and their teams navigate their way through it. Give your attendees the most inspiring, empowering and engaging experience today with the Change Specialist, Dr. Mark DeVolder.

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Keynote by Dr. Mark DeVolder

Future Proof: Navigating Change with Confidence and Excitement

Imagine a new way to change: unhurried, composed, and confident instead of the usual frenzy, chaos, and uncertainty. The Empowered Change strategy presented in this high-impact keynote equips participants to transform the pace of change and drive sustainable success by providing a clear roadmap for navigating the stages of change.

This program is perfect for leaders and teams in the midst of constant change who are:

  • Going through organizational growth, such as mergers and acquisitions, leadership changes, restructuring, and digital transformation.
  • Navigating their team members’ reactions to the volatility, complexity, and ambiguity in their work and life (like frustration, anxiety, confusion, and fear).
  • Feeling unprepared for their evolving roles and responsibilities or unable to change at the rate and pace needed to keep up with ever-increasing changes.

After this intensely practical session, the audience will leave with:

  • A Journey-map framework for understanding any change they experience.
  • A personal plan for confidently navigating the transitions between each stage of change.
  • The skills and mindset for boldly mobilizing through disruptive change to accomplish their objectives.
Keynote by Dr. Mark DeVolder

Harnessing the Hurricane: Leadership Secrets for Successfully Navigating Change

Drawing from more than two decades of working with global industry leaders, Mark distills the secrets of effective change leadership into the five essential mindsets demonstrated by top leaders.

This program is perfect for leaders and managers who are:

  • Leading significant organizational changes that require alignment, buy-in, and engagement.
  • Struggling to keep up with the constant evolution of work, including remote/hybrid work, digital transformations, and new business models.
  • Needing to adapt to, anticipate, and initiate disruption in their industry.

During Mark’s high-octane presentation, your audience will learn how to:

  • Avoid change-paralysis and develop change-ready thinking and behaviors.
  • Overcome decision-quicksand and make smart decisions faster.
  • Develop a leadership mindset for navigating themselves and their team through any change.
Keynote by Mark DeVolder

On Fire! Energized Together: Everyone, Every Day

This keynote empowers the audience to eliminate the mindsets and actions that extinguish motivation and enthusiasm and instead create life-giving opportunities to energize everyone every day.

This program is ideal for anyone in the organization who is:

  • Navigating multiple changes in the organization, some happening simultaneously.
  • Experiencing change saturation because of the pace and rate of constant change.
  • Frustrated and stressed about having to do more with less while contending with unclear direction and communication.

The audience will leave with:

  • Tools for identifying which of their current behaviors build up and tear down engagement.
  • Strategies to increase engagement in four key areas: clarity, competence, influence, and appreciation.
  • A proven plan for igniting every employee’s passion for teamwork, communication, and innovation.
Keynote by Mark DeVolder

Getting to Target Zero: Developing High-Performance Safety

Hazards and challenges abound in the fast and frenzied pace of business today: potentially dangerous situations, increased regulations, growing mental health issues in the workplace. However, the most common barrier is change itself. This safety keynote addresses the obstacles that cause people to disengage and empowers them to maintain both high performance and safety.

This program is perfect for leaders and teams who are:

  • Working in a highly regulated environment that is under the pressure of constant change and government regulations.
  • Dealing with stressful, potentially dangerous, time-sensitive situations and crises.
  • Fostering physical safety, psychological well-being and healthy workplace protocols.

The audience will leave with:

  • A framework to understand and navigate the changes they experience through the lens of safety.
  • Tools to identify current behaviors and practices that build high-performance safety and which practices tear it down.
  • The tools and motivation to take the first step toward high-performance safety.
Keynote by Mark DeVolder

Unstoppable Resilience: Developing the Mindset of Champions

Resilience is the quintessential element (aka. secret sauce) behind champions and successful teams. This highly actionable keynote teaches the audience how to instill this mindset into the DNA of their culture and team.

This program is perfect for leaders and teams who are:

  • Responsible for creating unity, well-being, and engagement in their team.
  • Tasked with delivering profitability and high performance during organizational change and disruption.
  • Seeking to create a resilient culture throughout their team and organization.

The audience will leave with:

  • Strategies for increasing elastic thinking, continuous learning, and unstoppable perseverance.
  • The motivation and tools to increase innovation, creativity, and risk-taking in their personal and professional lives.
  • The ability to cultivate a growth mindset of unlimited potential in the face of adversity, stress, and disruption.
Watch Dr. Mark DeVolder in action!

Dr. Mark DeVolder | Bureau Speaker Reel | 2024

Watch Dr. Mark DeVolder in action!

Virtual Meetings Promo Video Mark DeVolder

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References

Mark’s virtual presentation was so refreshing and timely with such great take-aways.

Janna Boloten

Nutrition Science Adviser, Abbott Laboratories

Mark’s presentation was such a breath of fresh air! An incredible delivery! The mark of a professional!

Jeff Reynolds

Advisor/Principal, Plan It Financial Corp

Mark’s virtual keynote energized the audience and he provided us with tools to apply to our organization.

Sharon Chen

Professional Engineers Ontario

Mark kept us glued to our screen, very entertaining and interactive, a true artist!

Simone Zatti

Marketing Director, Hilti

Dynamic and engaging. Timely and informative. The Right topic, the Right time, the Right Person.

Insurance Brokers Association of BC

We all left with tools to soar higher.

Spaceport Operations, NASA

Mark, you were nothing short of awesome!!!

Maria Sharpe

Chief Personnel Officer, PepsiCo Europe

If you get to work with Mark DeVolder, you're really lucky!

Jim Carrick-Birtwell

CEO, ChangeBoard, Arabian Human Resource Management Association

Mark was terrific! The day exceeded my expectations! We are already actively using his information around engagement to develop a new communication infrastructure and process for the Department.

Dr. Herbert Zeh

Chair of Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dr. DeVolder was thought-provoking and dynamic. Moving and powerful.

Al-Noor Moosa

Manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers

I have interacted with several keynote speakers and I have never come across a more warm, generous, prepared and magnanimous person than Dr. Mark.

Preethi Ramanan

Human Capital Management, Oracle
10.14.2014

Interview with Mark DeVolder

What is the message you hope people take away from your presentations?

There is a common thread through each of my presentations. Whether I’m speaking on change, engagement or leadership, the message I want people to take away is this; it’s all about people.

In essence my philosophy can be summed up by my phrase, “The business of relationships.”

How do you prepare for speaking engagements?

All of my presentations are highly customized and designed following in-depth interviews with members of the leadership team. Often, clients will send me important background information, articles and memos to help me prepare for a laser focused presentation. Because of this collaborative approach, I often receive enthusiastic feedback and return engagements. Frequently, I hear comments like, “it felt like Mark DeVolder was one of us.”

How do you handle change?

My approach to handling change is to focus on transitions.

When leaders reflect on the successful implementation of organizational changes, many admit that, initially, the bulk of their efforts focused on change management: what needs to be done, when and by whom. Later, when it came time for the changes to occur, leaders encountered surprising difficulties: dependable employees resisted making the prescribed changes, confusion and conflicts in the workplace, costs escalated and increased sick leave, to name a few. Unfortunately, many leaders assumed that if they planned the change carefully enough, the transition would follow automatically.

Transition Management looks at helping management and staff reorient themselves so that the changes can work. People leave my presentations with tools and a template to effectively navigate transitions.

How are your keynote presentations unique?

My presentations are entertaining, energizing and engaging. (After all, I speak on Engagement so my presentations had better be engaging!)

I am known for cutting-edge content, valuable takeaways, entertaining audience interaction, all illustrated by unstoppable humour and memorable stories.

Let me say a bit more about the interactive elements of my presentation because this sets me apart from many other speakers. You’ll notice that there are three distinct kinds of interaction: my interaction with the audience as a whole, the hilarious and poignant interaction with volunteers and the interaction amongst audience members. This last interaction allows participants to personalize and integrate my content for maximum impact.

What are some tips for improving relationships with customers?

Customer relationships can be summed up in four key areas:  competence, clarity, influence, appreciation.

First, customers want a high quality product/or service, and they want it delivered with competence. Customer service is enhanced when we communicate with clarity, providing valuable information in a friendly manner. The third element is influence. When we encourage and invite feedback from customers, it not only helps us to respond to their needs, but creates a cooperative relationship with the customer. The last component is appreciation. When customers feel appreciated, it creates loyalty.

What makes a keynote speech memorable?

Presentations that are memorable stay with people for a long time.

Certainly the entertainment factor is important: stories that people relate to, humour that disarms, content that inspires. In addition, for a presentation to be memorable, it must be engaging;

I’m convinced that participants will be engaged if they make a personal decision and respond. So there must be opportunities for people to respond and integrate the material.

The power comes when there is a swell of commitment to do things differently. Consequently, memorable presentations bring about clarity, simplicity, consensus and buy in. Individuals need to be motivated and equipped to unite together with others to make a profound difference.

This note I received from NASA Spaceport Operations sums it perfectly. “We all left with a better grip on our own humanity and tools to soar higher.”

How does humor factor into your presentations?

Humor is essential in my presentations and I provide lots of opportunities for it.

Humor is not only fun and entertaining, but a valuable learning tool. It disarms, unites, creates a sense of camaraderie and a fun atmosphere. Earlier in the interview, I mentioned three distinct kinds of interaction. Some of the funniest and fun elements in my presentations are the serendipitous interactions that occur with volunteers.

How do you define successful leadership?

A simple definition of a leader is someone who leads. But of course it all comes down to “how” they lead. I believe a leader is and becomes who the team needs them to be.

In a poignant and pointed posting on the website FireYourBoss.com, employees listed the following top six reasons to “Fire their Boss”,

  • Lack of trust and/or integrity (32%)
  • Micromanagement (24%)
  • Lack of feedback (12%)
  • Lack of opportunity to grow (12%)
  • Taking credit for the ideas & work of others (10%)
  • Lack of coaching/support (8%)

In summary, leadership is still the business of relationships.

See keynotes with Mark DeVolder
Non-binding request for Mark DeVolder

Send a simple request. You’ll get a quick reply with fees and availability

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Mark DeVolder
Mark DeVolder

5 out of 5 stars

Mark was terrific! The day exceeded my expectations! We are already actively using his information around engagement to develop a new communication infrastructure and process for the Department.

Dr. Herbert Zeh, Chair of Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center See all references

Keynote topics with Mark DeVolder