Martin Gutmann helps organisations rethink leadership and decision-making for an uncertain world, drawing on history and organisational psychology.
5.00 of 5
Top rated!5 of 5
Martin was a very open and engaging speaker, he generously shared a lot of valuable research from his work, but also openly shared his own experiences in life and leadership in a very relatable way.
UBS
Martin Gutmann is a globally sought-after keynote speaker, best-selling author and professor who brings a fresh perspective to leadership, decision-making and strategy. Drawing on history, sociology and organisational psychology, he reveals what leaders can learn from the past to better understand the challenges of today. His engaging, story-driven presentations transform extensive research into relevant insights for modern organisations. Martin has spoken for organisations including Google, UBS, Swiss Re, Zurich, Fujitsu and Dow, helping audiences think differently about leadership, change and the decisions shaping their future.
What if some of our most deeply held ideas about great leadership are wrong? Martin Gutmann invites audiences to look beyond conventional leadership narratives and examine what actually enables people and organisations to succeed over time.
Rather than treating history as a collection of stories from another era, Martin uses it as a lens for understanding contemporary organisational challenges. He explores why certain leadership ideas become dominant, how success can be misinterpreted and what leaders can learn by looking beyond the most visible personalities and dramatic moments.
Through compelling storytelling and accessible research, Martin creates keynotes that encourage audiences to reconsider familiar ways of thinking and approach leadership with greater perspective.
Martin’s work is rooted in a simple but powerful question: What can the past teach us about leading effectively today?
This idea is at the heart of his best-selling book, The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership. Organisational psychologist and thought leader Adam Grant has praised the book for challenging assumptions about effective leadership and how people are aligned around common goals.
Martin’s ideas have reached more than 60 million people through publications including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, where he is a regular contributor, Inc. and Fast Company, as well as appearances on leading management podcasts. His TED Talk, “Are We Celebrating the Wrong Leaders?”, has received more than two million views, and he was recognised in the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2026.
Martin Gutmann is a professor at the Lucerne School of Business and a senior lecturer at ETH Zurich. His academic expertise is complemented by an international career spanning leadership, education and management.
Born in Sweden, Martin has lived and worked in Japan, the United States, Canada, Mauritius, Germany and Switzerland, giving him broad experience across cultures and organisational environments.
From 2016 to 2020, he served as the founding Managing Director of the Swiss School of Public Governance, where he launched a programme for future global public sector leaders. Martin holds a Ph.D. in history from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and an Executive MBA from IE Business School in Spain. He has also completed higher education teacher training at Harvard University and ETH Zurich.
This combination of academic research, management education and international experience enables Martin to connect rigorous thinking with the realities facing leaders and organisations.
Martin Gutmann’s presentations resonate particularly strongly with audiences across leadership, HR, strategy and innovation. Instead of offering simple leadership formulas, he gives audiences frameworks for examining complex challenges from new perspectives.
His keynotes help audiences:
Across international conferences and corporate events, Martin is known for making complex ideas accessible, memorable and relevant to audiences ranging from senior executives to wider organisational teams.
When leaders face rapid change and difficult decisions, perspective matters. Martin Gutmann provides audiences with a distinctive way to examine leadership by connecting lessons from the past with the realities of modern organisations.
Through research, memorable storytelling and practical insight, he helps leaders look beyond conventional wisdom, broaden their thinking and approach complex decisions with greater clarity.
Book Martin Gutmann for a thought-provoking keynote that gives your audience a new perspective on leadership and the challenges shaping organisations today.
5 of 5
Martin was a very open and engaging speaker, he generously shared a lot of valuable research from his work, but also openly shared his own experiences in life and leadership in a very relatable way.
UBS
5 of 5
Martin is a masterful and engaging speaker who blends captivating stories with clear, actionable takeaways. Our audience loved every minute of his talk!
Leo Staub Zurich Corporate Law
5 of 5
Martin captivated our 500+ person audience of risk, resilience and response practitioners with his engaging and poignant talk on crisis leadership and what it means to lead in a crisis-dense world. We followed Charles Lindbergh's journey across the Atlantic to glean lessons that crisis leaders can use today. Martin has a great appeal when he speaks to an international audience, he is humble and authoritative at the same time. His credentials speak as clearly as he does – Martin is a great candidate for a corporate talk, capturing the attention of the most senior audience. Bravo!
Patricia Sánchez Dow
5 of 5
Martin brings a unique historian's perspective that keeps us grounded in human-centred values, learnings and future endeavours. In times of AI and fast technological advancement, Martin invites us to think creatively and exercise critical reasoning. It is a pleasure to have Martin as a guest speaker; he is a very fearless one!
Elisabete Ramalho Google
Keynote by Martin Gutmann:
Why do organizations need leaders in the first place? The answer is uncertainty. When the future is predictable, rules and processes are enough. But when markets shift, technologies disrupt, and crises emerge, people look for something more: direction, confidence, and meaning. Yet uncertainty also makes leadership profoundly difficult. It clouds judgment, fuels anxiety, and tempts us toward simplistic answers precisely when nuance matters most.
Drawing on captivating stories from history—from the pioneers of aviation and great explorers to business icons and world leaders—Martin Gutmann reveals why the leaders who thrive in uncertain times often succeed in ways that are deeply counterintuitive. Blending history, psychology, and cutting-edge leadership research, he challenges many of our assumptions about what effective leadership really looks like.
At the heart of the keynote are three essential leadership balances that enable individuals and organizations to flourish amid complexity: vision balanced with a focus on the mundane, drive balanced with humility, and values balanced with pragmatism. Audiences will leave with a fresh understanding of why these tensions lie at the heart of exceptional leadership and practical strategies for leading with greater clarity, resilience, and purpose in an increasingly uncertain world.
Keynote by Martin Gutmann:
Based on the TED talk that became a global sensation, Martin challenges your team in this keynote to reconsider their definition of effective leadership, highlighting that true greatness lies in preventing crises rather than responding dramatically to them.
Drawing lessons from the disaster- prone explorer Ernest Shackleton and other similarly famous (but consistently unsuccessful leaders), he challenges conventional views and offers a fresh perspective on what makes a leader truly exceptional.
Attendees will learn to appreciate the often-overlooked skill of crisis prevention and learn to cultivate the three universal traits of effective leaders: fluency in context, a balance of humility and confidence, and a pragmatic mindset.
Keynote by Martin Gutmann:
What really drives high-performance teams? In this eye-opening talk, Martin Gutmann breaks with conventional wisdom to reveal the secret behind truly resilient, high-performing teams (hint: the key is balancing relationships and performance), the critical role leaders play in making this happen, and why this matters now more than ever.
Drawing on exceptional teams from sports, such as the Chicago Bulls, and business, as well as cutting-edge research on psychological safety, team dynamics, and humble leadership, this talk delivers surprising insights and actionable takeaways that will change the way you think about leadership and team performance.
Keynote by Martin Gutmann:
This isn't a talk about AI strategy. It's a talk about what it will take to lead through one of the most profound revolutions in modern business. Combining sharp historical insight, witty anecdotes, state- of-the-field research, and actionable foresight, Martin Gutmann delivers a powerful new lens for understanding AI, not as a technical challenge, but as a leadership imperative.
Attendees will gain insights into the five concrete tensions they need to master to lead well in the age of AI: trust, productivity, meaning, clarity, and power.
Keynote by Martin Gutmann:
Communication isn't what leaders do after they've made a decision. It's how great leaders shape the decision and create momentum in the first place. In this engaging and thought-provoking keynote, Martin Gutmann challenges the conventional view of communication as a “soft skill,” revealing instead that it is the foundation upon which trust, alignment, culture, and high performance are built.
Drawing on surprising historical examples, cutting-edge research in organizational psychology, and memorable stories from business, politics, and sport, Martin explores why some messages inspire movements while others create confusion, resistance, or disengagement. Along the way, he uncovers the hidden role communication plays in everything from leading through uncertainty to building resilient, collaborative teams.
Audiences will leave with practical strategies for communicating with greater clarity, purpose, and authenticity; learning how to align people around a shared vision, foster trust through humility, and use storytelling to turn complexity into action.
