Find your spark together with a leading innovation expert
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Josh Linkner is a New York Times bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, professional jazz guitarist, and a globally-recognized innovation expert.
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Organizations that equip every single team member to become innovators are the ones that win over the long term. Josh Linkner delivers a powerful framework that will unlock hidden creativity in order to drive growth, innovation, and sustainable success.
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On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He’s the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā (mooDEE-tah) Venture Partners – an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion in investor returns. He’s twice been named the EY Entrepreneur of The Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.
While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years, studied at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and has performed over 1000 concerts around the world.
His experiences in both business and music led him to become one of the world’s foremost experts on innovation. Josh is the co-founder and Chairman of Platypus Labs, a global research, training, and consulting firm. Today, he’s on a mission to help leaders Find A Way™ through creative problem-solving, inventive thinking, and ingenuity.
See keynotes with Josh LinknerA proven innovation framework to solve problems, accelerate opportunity and sustain growth.
As we enter a new era of business, 50% of leaders in the United States have lost confidence in their ability to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. The level of disruption, technology threats, and volatility can be paralyzing. We are in a leadership crisis and must embrace a new model to meet today’s challenges.
Prolific entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and innovation expert Josh Linkner helps you Find A Way™ through his proven 5-step innovation framework for cultivating full-organization ingenuity. Whatever outcomes you crave the most – from sales growth to competitive advantage to employee engagement – you’ll walk away with specific tools to drive sustainable success.
The Find a Way™ framework prioritizes agility over brute force, creativity over hustle, and improvisation over perfect planning. Leaders who embrace the model are inspired and better equipped. They feel confident to move forward into the darkness and have a newfound capacity to win consistently, no matter the circumstances.
This keynote serves leaders & teams who are:
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How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results.
The pressure to generate big ideas can feel overwhelming. We know that bold innovations are critical in these disruptive and competitive times, but when it comes to breakthrough thinking, we often freeze up.
Instead of shooting for a $10 billion IPO or a Nobel Prize, the most prolific innovators focus on Big Little Breakthroughs – small, creative acts that unlock massive rewards over time.
The Big Little Breakthroughs framework provides a specific and practical approach to unlocking dormant creative capacity. Instead of wild, risky, and expensive moonshots, participants learn to unleash small, daily creative acts to drive gigantic results over time.
In this inspiring, timely, and high-impact keynote, New York Times bestselling author and globally-recognized innovation expert Josh Linkner shows us how to de-risk the creative process, build the capacity to unlock breakthrough transformations and gain the creative confidence to take responsible risks.
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What business leaders can learn about collaboration, creativity, and performance under pressure from the mysterious world of jazz.
The mysterious and dangerous world of jazz is a caldron of spontaneous creativity. And in times of radical change and uncertainty, it serves as the perfect model for modern leadership.
Professional jazz guitarist and prolific entrepreneur Josh Linkner connects the dots between jazz and business, helping to unlock the secrets of some of the world’s most creative geniuses. Using live jazz as a metaphor for collaborative innovation, this session is entertaining, inspiring, and directly applicable to the daily challenges we face in business.
A fusion of live musical performance and keynote presentation, the session’s finale includes audience members “joining the band” to compose and perform a song in real-time to the delight of the audience. Cameras will flash as the entire group is dazzled by their colleagues’ improvisation and spontaneous invention.
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A modern framework to lead with confidence in the face of uncertainty and change.
The business you’re running today isn’t the business you’ll be running next year. In this moment of volatility and uncertainty, we are being called to lead in a radically different way… more decisive, creative, and adaptable. So how can we use this defining moment to ensure relevancy, sustainability, and success in the future?
In this inspiring and practical keynote, battle-tested CEO, venture capital investor, and leadership expert Josh Linkner delivers a modern and accessible framework to help leaders thrive in the face of uncertainty and leverage their skills to move into uncharted territory with confidence.
You’ll learn how to unlock inventive thinking, creative problem-solving, and ingenuity in every box of the org chart. The most successful leaders today help everyday people become everyday innovators. They make sure that innovation is an everyday business.
This can’t-miss session goes way beyond the future of work. This is the future of growth, the future of relevancy, the future of leadership, and the future of success.
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A proven system to drive breakthrough creativity.
In our modern AI-driven world, creativity has become the currency of success. It’s the one thing that can’t be outsourced or automated; the indisputable competitive advantage. We are all hard-wired to be creative, yet most of us have underdeveloped creative skills. And today, more than ever before, creative problem-solving and inventive thinking are crucial to overcoming obstacles and seizing opportunities.
Based on the breakaway New York Times bestselling book published in 19 languages and globally recognized by over 2 million readers as the definitive work on applied creativity, author and creativity expert Josh Linkner takesthe audience on a journey to unlock their dormant creative capacity. Inspiring stories, surprising truths, and instantly-applicable solutions make this keynote both energizing and actionable.
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How to drive disruption and accelerate transformation.
We’re living in a rate of change like none other in history. The hard truth is that we can no longer rely on the models of the past and expect the same results.
In this energizing and actionable keynote, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of rapid change and how to respond confidently and intentionally. New York Times bestselling author and lifetime disruptor Josh Linkner shares a proven model for you to take control and reinvent your own future.
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When Josh speaks, business improves.
In today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace the most important resource any business has is the creative thinking of its people. Josh Linkner lays out a road map that will guide individuals, teams, and companies to higher levels of creativity. It is a journey that will lead to better ideas and breakthrough thinking.
Bill Ford
We very much enjoyed your talk and workshop. You created just the right finish and exclamation point in our program. The feedback from our team – amazing, energizing messages, entertaining and humorous, actionable learnings, things people can do right away.
Sajeena Warrier
Building a culture of innovation in large companies is critically important, and there’s no better way to learn than with a trusted roadmap of tools and real-life examples. Josh Linkner illustrates how innovative thinking is possible for every employee and business leader, so we can all unlock our full creative potential.
Mike Kaufman
Josh Linkner helps organizations discover and exploit their strengths in a changing business world. He clearly shows how to reignite innovation and unlock new business value such as speed, agility, persistence and partnership.
Alan Boehme
Josh Linkner delivers a roadmap to help future generations of entrepreneurs and innovators push boundaries and explore the art of the possible. He provides a clear path to help you build an army of everyday innovators and turn ideas into action.
Steve Case
Josh Linkner unlocks the techniques behind some of the world’s most remarkable innovations.
Eric Schurenberg
Awesome, awesome, awesome!!! You nailed your message and nicely incorporated our company into your talk.
Dr. Gregory F. Molinar
The speed of invention is threatening traditional products and services, already relegating some to history. No business can afford to pause for a moment from the headlong drive to meet new challenges. Josh reminds us that to reinvent the workplace we must continually reinvent ourselves as leaders.
Deborah Hopkins
Thank you a million times over—you nailed it with the presentation yesterday and it was spot on for our team! You sparked so many follow-on discussions and were a continued theme throughout our meeting—people are already brainstorming great new ideas about how to implement small innovations and use your tips to break down barriers on our teams.
Melissa Filipek
With the pace of innovation and resulting changes in consumer behavior, no company can afford to sit still. Growing a successful company requires creative assessment and disruption – and this constant change can be tough on an organization. Josh Linkner illustrates how to steward this mindset in your organization; how to lead your employees to not only accept, but embrace, the necessity for continuous reinvention.
Carol Kruse
Josh Linkner sets the new standard for using creativity in everyday life. Inspiring stories, fascinating research, and a practical guide that shows how all of us can be everyday innovators.
Mel Robbins
In our turbulent business climate, we all seek new pathways to growth and success. Yet winning can be elusive in these times of dizzying speed and ruthless competition.
Too often, once great organizations become intoxicated by their own success. They fail to adapt, fail to innovate, and then simply fail. To avoid this trap, we must exploit our most powerful weapon: human creativity. Its the one thing that can’t be outsourced or automated, and has become the currency of success. Cultivating creativity and innovation is leadership job #1 if we want to enjoy sustainable growth and progress.
Having studied hundreds of the most innovative people in history, I’ve discovered five core beliefs that transcend industry, geography, and upbringing. These patterns are easy to understand and can be implemented directly into your daily work to drive growth and success:
1. Get Curious. It turns out that curiosity is very much the building block of creativity. The more curious you are, the more creative you’ll become. Try asking questions that begin with “why”, “what if”, or “why not?” When you ask these questions, it forces you to imagine the possibilities and explore fresh approaches.
2. Crave What’s Next. It’s easy to think success is a permanent condition, yet that has been the downfall for far too many organizations. Instead, we must lean into change, embracing new approaches rather than clinging to old ones. Too often, we overestimate the risk of trying something new but underestimate the risk of standing still.
3. Defy Tradition. Family traditions can be wonderful, but traditions in our professional lives can be deadly. Blindly doing things in a traditional way has been the downfall or far too many companies and careers. Instead, when you find yourself approaching your work in a traditional way, examine your approach carefully and see if you can flip it upside down.
4. Get Scrappy. We often believe our ability to innovate is tied to external resources such as money, headcount, or raw materials. The truth is, the real building blocks of innovation areinternal resources: Grit. Determination. Tenacity. Resilience. This is why startups are able to do more with less and upend industry giants.
5. Adapt Fast. Most breakthroughs only materialize through a series of setbacks and mistakes, failures and pivots, tweaks and micro-innovations. Rapid-fire creativity, practiced as a daily habit, can be far more important than the potency of an initial ideal. Experiment, learn, adapt. Rinse and repeat.
Creativity is a skill – a muscle – that each of us can harness to drive our companies and careers to the next level. Push the boundaries, shake it up, explore what’s possible. Inject innovative approaches into your everyday work, and the results will be stunning.
Josh Linkner is a 5-time tech entrepreneur, NY Times bestselling author, venture capitalist, and professional-level jazz guitarist, and highly sought after keynote speaker.
What is the message you hope people take away from your presentations?
Audiences leave my talks energized and empowered. They are fired up knowing that they have the capacity to inject creativity into all areas of their business in order to drive meaningful results. And they are empowered by learning specific techniques and business takeaway value that they can put to use immediately. Attendees come away fully understanding the importance of creativity and innovation in their organizations, and are given a specific framework for how to deploy this natural resource effectively.
How are your keynotes Unique?
I am not a typical “speaker” whose main accomplishments are speaking. I founded, built, and sold three companies before I turned 30. My 4th company grew to 500 employees and $100 million in revenue before I sold it to a large private equity firm. I now run a venture capital firm in Detroit, Michigan and am also a professional jazz musician.
I bring a very unique perspective of someone who has actually put these ideas to work, who has overcome deep adversity, and has used creativity to win at the highest levels of business. The presentations include zero “bullet points.” Instead, they are rich with vivid imagery, energizing video clips, humor, and captivating story telling. Audiences are entertained, fired-up, and given specific tools to expand their own creative abilities.
Who or what is your biggest source of inspiration?
Those that forge new ground inspire me. Business and community leaders who dare to do the never-been-done-before. I admire those that disrupt the status quo and shatter conventional wisdom. This ranges from innovators like Elon Musk and Tony Hseih to jazz musicians like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. I am inspired by those who break the mold and have the courage to turn things upside down.
Why is creativity so important in the business world?
It has gone from being a nice-to-have to being mission-critical. As many of the competitive advantages of the past have become commoditized, creativity is the one thing left standing. The one thing that can’t be outsourced. The one source of sustainable competitive advantage. In a world of dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and ruthless competition it is the natural resource that can be the difference maker between prosperity and mediocrity. Between staying alive or getting crushed by the competition.
Can you give 3 tips for companies who wish to create a creative business culture?
Is there a link between your passion for jazz and the work you do?
Absolutely! Jazz is fundamentally about improvising, which is the exact same demands we face in the business world. Things are moving too quickly to follow an operating manual and expect to win. Jazz musicians adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, thrive on ambiguity and essentially innovate in real time. Developing these skills is critical for business leaders today in order to drive their organizations forward in these challenging times.
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