I give engaging, energetic, insightful, funny and customized keynote addresses to audiences all over the world about topics that include:
- Technology and Behavior Trends
- Future Proofing your Business
- Innovation and Disruption
- The Future of Transportation
- Media and Entertainment
- Changing Customer and Audience Behavior
- Digital Marketing & Advertising
- Shakespeare as a Business Innovator
If you’d like to have me keynote your event please contact me.
Most recent blurb from August 2020 (more below):
As the co-chair of the Association for Strategic Planning’s global 2020 Virtual Conference Series, I had the good fortune to engage Brad as the keynote speaker for our Leadership Track. His presentation on “The Shakespeare Strategy” resonated deeply with our attendees, generating great engagement in the live chat during the presentation and in the Q&A session that followed. The best keynote addresses catch the attention and imagination of attendees, offering new perspectives or challenging us to think differently. Brad did all of those things with The Shakespeare Strategy. I look forward to the his book so I can dive into the concepts he presented more deeply.
Lynne Brown, Vice President, Strategic Consulting, iBossWell
Check out these videos of me onstage:
Dodging Meteor Strikes: In April of 2019 I keynoted the Cascade Strategy “Engage” Conference in Portland, Oregon:
(Some of the slides aren’t shown, but you’ll get the gist…)
Wearables: In May of 2015 I spoke on wearables at Nordiske Medie Dager (the Nordic Media Festival):
You can also see an entertaining post-talk interview with me here.
And here’s what Guri Hefty, Director of the Nordic Media Festival, said about my talk:
Brad Berens is such a great speaker and was a wonderful contribution to the Nordic Media Festival this year. He’s spot on the topic, engaging, funny, knowledgeable and his session on Wearables was highly appreciated by our delegates. We hope to be able to welcome him back to Bergen one day.
The Shakespeare Strategy: A TEDx talk about Shakespeare as a business genius:
Where have I spoken?
In addition to conferences like (in alphabetical order) ad:tech, &THEN, BrandInnovators, the Business Marketing Association, CES, the CMO Collective, the Digital Collective, Digital Hollywood, Drive, FutureM and iMedia, I’ve given invited talks at Anheuser-Busch, KQED, Google, Yahoo!, Red Bull, Paramount Pictures, the IPG Media Lab, TV2 in Norway, USC’s Annenberg School and College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, the University of Notre Dame, the Boston Ad Club, the e-Voter Institute, the National Communications Association, U.C. Berkeley and elsewhere. I’m also a mentor at PIE (The Portland Incubator Experiment), the Nike+ Accelerator and other incubators where I speak frequently.
What people say about me onstage…
Here’s what Polly Wong, Managing Partner of Belardi Wong, said about a keynote I gave in April of 2019:
I first saw Brad speak at Retail Ascendant and was immediately drawn to his presentation. We host an annual summit for our 300+ retail clients – everything from digitally native retailers to DTC to wholesalers and more traditional brands – each year in Napa. Year after year, we look for exceptional speakers that will not only captivate our audience, but deliver best-in-class information and cutting-edge ideas to them. After hearing Brad present, I knew that he would be an organic fit. He is animated, compelling and knowledgeable. Brad was one of our highest rated speakers, and I would recommend him for future events.
Polly Wong, Managing Partner, Belardi Wong
Here’s what Ryf Quail, Managing Director of Comexposium in Australia and New Zealand said about a keynote I gave in March of 2018:
Brad Berens is a fantastic keynote who knows his craft very well. Brad opened ad:tech Sydney and kicked off our show in style. He is an absolute professional who is easy to work with and takes all in his stride. I highly recommend Brad to anyone looking to for a future-facing keynote speaker at their event.
Here are just three of the many positive comments on Brad’s talk:
“A stand out– succinct arguments, opinionated but respectful, backed with data but presented as common sense.”
“Best presentation of the conference. Brad knew his content so back to front that I was engaged and listening the entire time! I didn’t even look down to take notes.”
“He gets where we are heading– fantastic!”
In April 2018, Michael Isip, EVP & COO of KQED, had this to say:
I asked Brad to be the “headliner” presentation at a Board retreat before two dozen leaders across sectors in for-profit and nonprofit of the San Francisco Bay Area as well as a 13 member executive team. Brad’s challenge was to look 5-10 years ahead at changes in media and audience behavior, so that our public media organization could reimagine our future of producing and distributing video and audio while staying true to our mission of strengthening and building community. Brad over-delivered by weaving together a story of data, cultural context, industry changes, and personal anecdotes which engaged everyone and sparked dialogue during… and after.
Here’s what Katharine Panessidi, VP of Content and Events for the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange, producer of the annual FutureM (Future of Marketing) event said about a talk I gave in October of 2015:
Brad Berens uniquely combined timeless aspects of storytelling with sharpest-edge technology trends in his FutureM talk. I truly appreciated how he customized the presentation to include Boston-area examples and to weave in what the previous speakers throughout the conference had discussed. He is a fantastic and impactful speaker, and I’m not the only one who thought so. Some of our attendees described Brad as “inspirational and very thought provoking,” “too short” (I never hear this), and “the most thought-provoking presentation of the conference.” I hope Brad got out as much as he put into his terrific presentation.
Here’s a comment from Ari Popper, CEO of SciFutures, said this:
SciFutures recently hired Brad to kick off a series of presentations at an offsite summit for our CPG client. Brad is an outstanding speaker– he is engaging and funny, but most importantly he has a brilliant ability to help his audience comprehend the challenges and opportunities of these fast moving times that we live in. Brad’s gift is that he makes complex issues easy to understand and he provides his audience with a concrete road map to leverage these opportunities. He is highly recommended and we will definitely be hiring him again.
Kevin Doohan, Director of Digital Marketing for Red Bull, had this to say:
I’ve always considered Brad’s advice kind of a digital marketing ‘secret weapon.’ His knowledge of the space and of where we are headed is insightful and valuable. That said, Brad’s advice isn’t for geeks only. I engaged Brad to create ad:tech custom sessions for the brand marketing teams at ConAgra Foods when I was there and, more recently, to speak with the Red Bull marketing team at our headquarters about digital trends for Red Bull key consumers. Brad delivered brilliantly. Both sessions exceeded my high expectations. The sessions helped our newly-inspired and informed marketers deliver better outcomes than ever.
Carol Phillips, President of Brand Amplitude and also an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the University of Notre Dame said this about a recent talk:
“Brad Berens’ keynote speech ‘The Big Trends of Social Media’ at the Notre Dame Marketing Symposium in March 2010 managed the neat trick of being both be meaty and mesmerizing. Packed with startling facts and insightful anecdotes, Brad’s remarks provoked thoughtful discussion and provided the right frame for the rest of the symposium. Everyone remembered his concept of importance of ‘social friction’ and why it matters long after the conference ended.”
At an iMedia Brand Summit, Tim Murphy of Anheuser-Busch Digital Marketing said this about an internal talk I gave at the brewer’s St. Louis HQ to help sell interactive within the marketing department:
“We had our own Summit, and, in fact, Brad Berens came in… and we had 10 or 11 speakers. That’s what triggered it for us. Brad was presenting, and the CMO turned around [to ask], ‘Murph, can we do that? Can we do that?’ If you can bring in some outside speakers to validate what you’re doing, it will help tremendously, because that’s what set us off… It was enlightening for our management. We’re talking with them for months, and then within two hours after Brad’s presentation, it was over. It was great.”
If you’d like to have me keynote your event please contact me.