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Deborah Perry Piscione
Authority on Innovation & Leadership
Deborah Perry Piscione
Authority on Innovation & Leadership
Biography
We know that great leaders are defined by the extraordinary people that they lead. What makes Deborah Perry Piscione so special is that she has uncovered the DNA from the inspired cultures of the most innovative companies in the world. It is no surprise that organizations that build systems to grow the passions of their talented workforce are more productive, more innovative, more loyal, and consistently move faster than competitors. Provocative and wonderfully entertaining, Deborah’s presentations are a prerequisite for leaders looking to shake the status quo.
Through her years of research and hands-on work with many of Silicon Valley’s pioneer companies, she has found the keys to building organizations into innovation machines and preparing leaders for the future. She is the architect of Improvisational Innovation, a bottom’s up innovation process, where anyone in any corner of the company can bring forth new ideas in a trusted environment and be rewarded for it. Adopted at Qualcomm, Tata Group, Nike, McKinsey & Co, among many other leading global companies, Deborah’s process has created a minimum of 10x ROI in new products and services for the company, and greatly assist in talent development as employees explore their passions.
Deborah’s discoveries are highlighted by her series of critically acclaimed books:
- Employment is Dead: How Web3 Technologies will Radically Change our Relationship with Work (to be published Fall 2024, Harvard Business Review Press)
- The People Equation: Why Innovation Is People, Not Products
- Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World
- The Risk Factor: Why Every Company Needs Big Bets, Bold Characters and the Occasional Spectacular Failure
All of these books and the research in them stems from the differences between old-school power and new-school leadership, which Deborah understands well thru first-hand experience. Having worked as an insider at the White House and Capitol Hill, and then moving into the center of Silicon Valley, Deborah was struck by the vast differences in power and leadership between the two coasts. She became fascinated by the collaborative cultures of innovation that dominate the Silicon Valley region, especially the voracious appetite for growing value from ideas.
This spurred her to launch five successful companies, including Sterling Capital (a venture capital fund focusing on the future of work). Another, Alley to the Valley, has grown into the most influential program for connecting powerful business women.
It is this unique experience and understanding that has made her one of the most sought-after business speakers today. With companies and industries looking for every new customer, every new idea, every advantage they can find, Deborah specializes in helping organizations do this by understand their under-realized assets — their talent workforce — that they already have under their nose, and build systems that unlock their full potential. Both her keynotes and her innovation boot-camps for Fortune 500 leaders are fully customized for your very specific needs.
Deborah is a LinkedIn Learning author (“Executing on Innovation” and “Risk-taking for Leaders”), a Stanford University Case Study (Graduate School of Business) “Deborah Perry Piscione: Finding Opportunity in Silicon Valley” and a former television commentator with CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.
Her speaking clients include Google, McKinsey & Co., TED Talks, Cadence Design, London School of Economics, Microsoft, McDonalds, NetApp, Princeton University, KPMG, Innotown, Qualcomm, Society for Human Resource Management, Stanford University, Accenture, Texas Economic Development Council, Singularity University, among many others.
Ultimately, Deborah is the perfect speaker if you are searching for an undeniably compelling presentation exploring how to adapt to the demands of an increasingly fast-paced, agile and unforgiving world.
Speaker Videos
Speaking Demo Reel
Risk Taking Leadership
Improvisational Innovation
Artificial Intelligence
Deborah Speaking Clip - Yes, And
TEDTalk: The Risk Factor
Culture
Innovation
Leadership
On Silicon Valley
Talent
Speech Topics
Executing on Innovation: Harvesting New Ideas from Any Corner of the Company
Deborah Perry Piscione has uncovered the DNA from the inspired cultures of the most innovative companies in the world. In doing so, she architected a bottom’s up innovation process called, Improvisational Innovation, where anyone in any corner of the company can bring forth new ideas and be rewarded for it. And for the companies that has heard her presentation and brought the Improvisational Innovation process internally? A record 10x growth in new or existing revenue streams!
New ideas and bold bets are essential for the livelihood and survival of any organization operating in today’s competitive marketplace and era of exponential growth. This presentation is for any leader or manager throughout the company who has been kept up at night and thought, “How do I know where the next big idea is? “ or “What are the incremental or groundbreaking ideas that can be cultivated from my employees?” This presentation is critical for those thinking about company growth and needs to harvest ideas that will either generate new revenue streams or save the company money.
Over 15 years of research and a passion for innovation + democratizing opportunity for everyone in every corner of the company, Deborah Perry Piscione is known for her secret sauce to create growth, a 12-step process over 4-9 months sprints that:
- Provides a framework for ideation + risk-taking
- Captures ideas from any person in every corner of the company in a safe + trusted environment
- Develops talent beyond their day-to-day job
- Rewards the employee and their team
- Creates an entrepreneurial + risk-taking culture
- Generates new revenue streams, products + services for the company
Through her interactive presentation, Deborah addresses the four ingredients of innovative success: 1) A corporate culture that fosters experimentation; 2) Leadership who understands that it is their job to take risks; 3) An environment that values people for all their talents and passions (not just the job they were hired for); and 4) An annual innovation process that allows people to submit ideas in a safe and trusted environment. As Deborah explains, leaders know that without nurturing big ideas, top line expansion is limited. This process helps an organization shift to a growth mode, and addresses the question on how to identify, source, data-mine, and execute upon new ideas from any employee in every corner of the company.
Attendees will learn how to take the annual 12-step Improvisational Innovation process back to their organizations and provide employees an opportunity to bring forth new ideas in a safe and trusted space and be recognized and rewarded for it.
Brought to large enterprises such as Qualcomm, Nike, Pfizer, Phillip Morris International and Accenture, the Improvisational Innovation process has been described as “the most effective means of allowing good ideas to bubble up from anyone at any time.”
How to Create a Risk-Taking Culture to Unleash Workforce Productivity
It’s no coincidence that our most revered business icons are also the boldest risk-takers, such as Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. Yet with so much emphasis on short-term stock price gains and bottom line focus, organizations tend to act too safe, resulting in a stagnant business culture which generates entirely forgettable results in a world that demands significant solutions.
If ground-breaking innovation is about taking calculated risks, then why do companies not only set reams of policies and procedures to limit risk, but also spend no resources developing the key skills and systems for effective risk-taking? In this poignant presentation, Deborah discusses how to get back into the business of taking risk. Based on her series of books, including The Risk Factor: Why Every Organization Needs Big Bets, Bold Characters, and the Occasional Spectacular Failure, Deborah Perry Piscione explores risk-taking as a powerful tool for leaders and their organizations.
Exemplifying the heroes of risk, entrepreneurship, and venture capitalism, and the role risk-taking play in their success, Piscione makes the case that for your culture to act smarter, faster, with more agility in reacting to competition and developing innovative ways to grow, you must explore the one core leadership skill that has been completely ignored in corporate cultures. She explores both the individual skills and organization systems to unleash risk-taking. This is a very exciting speech for an entire audience.
- Discover how to create a culture of risk-taking to generate next level business solutions
- Develop skills for effective risk-taking and betting big on the creativity of employees
- Explore new avenues for improving organizational culture to optimize risk-taking and encourage creative exploration
The Future of Work is Not Employment…It Is the Metaverse
In this keynote, Deborah explores the mindset shift necessary to thrive in the metaverse, provides reasons why employees will eventually abandon traditional employment for the bounty of Web3, and outlines practical strategies that digital-first leaders can start implementing today to take advantage of this vast new world of endless possibilities.
This interactive session cuts through the myths of web3 and explores how forward-thinking, digital first leaders can navigate the impact that the metaverse will have on the future of work, by educating them on the advances in web3 technology and providing practical strategies for them to integrate the Metaverse into their current business practices.
Take a dive into the wonderful interoperability of the metaverse and the impact it will have on the way we view employment.
The metaverse and web3 technologies are rapidly emerging and have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with the digital world. This introductory presentation will provide an overview of the concepts of the metaverse and web3 technologies and their potential impact on work.
Learning Outcomes:
- Understanding the concept of the metaverse and its potential applications in work environments.
- Exploring the basics of web3 technologies, including blockchain and cryptocurrency, and their potential impact on work.
- Understanding how the metaverse and web3 technologies can impact the way we work, such as enabling decentralized work and creating new business models.
- Identifying the potential challenges and risks associated with the adoption of these technologies in the workplace.
- Developing a basic understanding of the skills and competencies that will be in demand in the metaverse and web3 era.
The metaverse and web3 technologies represent an exciting new frontier that will have a significant impact on work. By understanding the concepts of the metaverse and web3 technologies and their potential impact on work, we can prepare for the future and take advantage of the opportunities that these technologies offer. As the world of work continues to evolve, it is crucial to stay up to date with emerging technologies and be adaptable to change to thrive in the new digital era.
WANTED: Digital First Leaders
Leaders in business have two seminal jobs: to provide a vision for the business, and most importantly to create a company culture that values employees and provides customized experiences to them. Unfortunately, while most leaders provide a vision for the business, they fail at building a craveable culture. They’ve been taught to treat people like pawns on a chessboard, rather than human beings with feelings, dreams and goals. They fail to encourage risk-taking and innovation at every level of the organization.
In this keynote, Deborah helps leaders set the tone of the organization to ring loud and clear throughout the entire company, from the C-Suite to the newest entry-level employee. In the new world of work people’s emotions and ideas matter FIRST, not the mindless execution of a business leaders’ plans.
Deborah will lay out why traditional leadership strategies will continue to slip into obsolescence if they don’t transform and how digital-first leaders can adapt to the changing landscape of the Metaverse. In addition, she will make the case of how Web3 technologies will alleviate the persistent problems that employers often lose sleep to solve, such as employee engagement, productivity, innovation and growth. Participants will dig into the new dynamics of employee power and how it will reshape the employee-employer relationship for the better.
- Understanding the concept of emerging technologies and their potential impact on the future of work.
- Identifying the potential benefits and challenges of new work trends, such as increased collaboration, new business models, and potential privacy concerns.
- Exploring the role of blockchain technology in enabling decentralized work and its potential impact on the future of work.
- Learning about the skills and competencies that will be in high demand such as digital literacy, adaptability, and creativity.
- Developing an action plan for preparing for the future of work as new technologies continue to disrupt the flow of work.
WORKSHOP: The Secrets of Innovative Success
New ideas and bold bets are essential for the livelihood and survival of any organization + government operating in today’s competitive marketplace and era of exponential growth. On the minds of many leaders are the questions such as, “How do I know where the next big idea is?” and “What are the incremental or groundbreaking ideas that can be harvested from my employees?” Leaders know that without nurturing big ideas, topline expansion is limited. Deborah Perry Piscione created Improvisational Innovation™, a bottom-up methodology that engages all the talents of the entire organization, helps the organization shift to a growth mode, and addresses the question on how to identify, source, data-mine and execute upon new ideas from any employee.
Through her interactive and hands-on workshop, Deborah addresses the four Secrets of Innovative Success: 1) A corporate culture that fosters experimentation; 2) Leadership who understands that it is their job to take risks; 3) An environment that values people for all their talents and passions (not just the job they were hired for); and 4) An annual innovation process that allows people to submit ideas in a safe and trusted environment, a process she calls Improvisational Innovation.
A 12-step process over 4-9 months sprints that:
- Provides a framework for ideation + risk-taking
- Captures ideas from any person in every corner of the company in a safe + trusted environment
- Develops talent beyond their day-to-day job
- Rewards the investor and their team
- Creates an entrepreneurial + risk-taking culture
- Generates new revenue streams, products + services for the company
Deliverables: After your leadership team completes the Improvisational Innovation workshop, participants walk away with annual innovation goals to address your company’s opportunity spaces, pain points and under addressed needs for growth and cost-savings. The workshop arms you and your leadership team with a step-by-step, month-to-month, plan of deliverables, KPIs, and key motivators for inspiring your employees to participate.
After the workshop, participants have the opportunity to refresh with Deborah’s LinkedIn Learning courses, “Executing on Innovation” and “Risk-taking for Leaders,” Both of her courses have been reviewed and approved by LinkedIn Learning and the PMI® Authorized Training Partner Program and qualifies for professional development units (PDUs).
Improvisational Innovation has been adopted at Fortune 500 companies such as Qualcomm, Tata Enterprise, NetApp, Nike, Pfizer, Philip Morris International, Accenture, Coppel (Mexico), among others. On average, the process has yielded $200M USD in new and expanded revenue streams within 12-18 months of adoption. The Improvisational Innovation process has also been embraced by startups and fundamental for governments that are trying to diversify their economies and build regional ecosystems.
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