Kevin Freiberg Speaker Biography
Bestselling Author, Thought Leader, and Speaker on
Leadership, Innovation, and Change
Dr. Kevin Freiberg is the president of San Diego Consulting Group, Inc., a professional speaking and consulting firm dedicated to equipping leaders for a world of change. For over 27 years, Kevin has been profiling revolutionary business leaders in some of the world’s most innovative companies. He has successfully turned those profiles into roadmaps that help clients create their own revolutionary strategies for growth.
Keynote Speaker
Concrete Examples • Entertaining Stories • Incredible Energy. These are a few reasons why clients in every part of the world invite Kevin Freiberg to be their featured speaker. Dr. Freiberg is on a short list of global thought leaders that Fortune 1000 CEOs turn to for the kind of disruptive thinking that drives growth and gets people excited about the future.
Customization
Regardless of how many speakers you’ve hired, you’ll be hard pressed to find a speaker who does as much customizing as Dr. Kevin Freiberg. If you want a keynote that truly speaks the language of your business and addresses the nuances of your industry, Kevin is the speaker to book. Over 2000 companies in 60 industries across the globe have given Kevin rave reviews. His insights have helped ambitious leaders accelerate innovation, and STAND OUT in a sea of sameness by building companies that are hungry for change.
Books
His books include: the international bestseller, NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, its sequel GUTS!, BOOM! (7-timeless choices for inspiring leadership and accountability). NANOVATION (a how to on innovation) and DO SOMETHING NOW and Be a PERSON OF IMPACT, two quick reads that will change your organization and your life, and CAUSE: A Business Strategy for Standing Out In A Sea of Sameness. Their latest book is Bochy Ball! The Chemistry of Winning and Losing in Baseball, Business, and Life.
Media
Named one of the “Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership” by Leadership Excellence Magazine, Dr. Freiberg has appeared on CNBC, CBS Sunday Morning and the CBS Morning News for his views on the critical links between leadership, corporate culture, change, and innovation.
Publications
He has also appeared on the television series Lessons in Excellence for CNBC India. His articles and interviews have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, India’s Economic Times, India’s Business Standard, India’s Financial Times and Capital Business & Finance Magazine of Dubai.
Executive Coach
Dr. Freiberg has a global practice working with firms in Southeast Asia, Europe, Japan, India, the Middle East, Central and South America, as well as companies throughout the United States and Canada. Kevin helps business leaders better understand the impact of their choices, attitudes and behaviors on employee engagement, corporate culture, innovation, customer devotion and organizational performance. He has challenged corporate leaders all over the world to question the unquestionable, jettison the “incumbent” mentality, look beyond customer imagination for the next big thing and build companies that are hungry for change.
Professor
Before becoming a full-time speaker and consultant, Kevin taught for eight years at the University of San Diego and San Diego State University, where he met his wife, Jackie. He received his bachelors’ in English literature and masters’ degree in speech communication from San Diego State; he earned his doctorate in leadership at the University of San Diego.
Clients
Kevin’s clients span a wide range of industries and include: •KPMG •Humana •Kaiser Permanente •QVC •FedEx •National Fire Sprinkler Association •Vail Resorts •AARP •Wayne Automatic Fire Sprinklers •MGM Resorts •Microsoft •University of San Diego •CUNA •L’Oréal •Credit Union Association New York •Vail Resorts •Kraft •Bank of America •Honeywell •National Life •American Express •Unisys •AT&T •Beef USA •Sony •Tire Pros •Powder River Energy Corporation
Virtual Presentations
In addition to the in-person type, all of Kevin’s keynotes can be delivered in five 10-minute segments that can be streamed live or via video to audience members along with slides to complement the subject.
In addition to the traditional, in person, all of Jackie’s keynotes can be delivered in five 10-minute segments that can be streamed live or via video to audience members, along with slides to complement each segment.
Kevin Freiberg Speaking Topics
Bochy Ball! The Chemistry of Winning and Losing in Baseball, Business, and Life
Business leaders can draw from the insights and apply the wisdom that turned the failing San Francisco Giant's franchise into a $2B force, with 3 World Championship titles in 5 years. You do NOT have to be a baseball fan or sports addict to learn from Bochy Ball. You do have to be a person who wants to borrow from what great leadership looks like in the best and worst of times! How does that translate to today's business leaders? The Giant's success is based upon clubhouse culture, team chemistry, and a championship mindset, all things every business can gain from. Top CEO's understand that an intentional approach to company culture and a willingness to nurture a "champion's mindset" in each of their employees is vital to their organization's success. Whether you want to... • Reinforce a Major Initiative • Stretch People's Thinking • Build More Team Chemistry • Establish a Business Case for Change • Coach People to Perform at their Very Best, or • Inspire a Higher Level of Leadership You will get a highly customized keynote, that wraps countless lessons from Bochy Ball around your team's performance goals and your meeting objectives.
Hungry for Change
In the future there will be two types of organizations: the quick and the dead—those that are unforgettable and those that reside in a sea of sameness, those struggling with commoditization and those that transcend price wars by competing on relationship, innovation and radical differentiation. If you want to be built to last you must be hungry for change. In this presentation Kevin will show you what happens in companies that are passionate about growth. He will also show you what happened to a few that got stuck in the ‘incumbent’s mentality” and failed to change because they thought they had too much to lose. The rules of your industry are being rewritten. New business models are disrupting the old ones. Technology waits for no one and everyone and everything around you is constantly getting better. Will the changes you make be opportunity-led or crisis-driven? The business leaders and companies highlighted in this talk refuse to be held hostage by history. They are willing to LET GO of past innovations and unwilling to lean on yesterday’s headlines. Why? Because they know that they are never more vulnerable to complacency, arrogance, indifference and inflexibility than when they are riding the wave of success. These organizations are far more interested in NEXT practices than BEST practices because they know that in emulating someone else’s best practices, the best they will ever be is a good #2. What if you could create an organization like that? Your audience will walk away with 5-6 strategies for building a YES-FAST culture where egos are checked at the door, great ideas are taken from anyone, anywhere, anytime, where people move with a sense of urgency and say “yes” to new relationships, new business.
Think Different…
Radically different. Unforgettably distinct. Truly Original. Easily distinguished. Do these words describe your business? Products? Services? Relationship with your customers? In a world of mimicry and “me-tooism,” you can’t be a leader by playing follow the leader. This presentation is about growing your business by finding the courage to break away in a world where there’s so much pressure to conform. Drawing from research on companies that dare to step out of the comfort zone and do what no one else does, Dr. Freiberg will challenge your audience to: Forget about normal and think abnormal. Forget about fitting in. Think about standing out. Forget about middle of the road. Think: On the edge. Forget about ordinary. Think special. What’s so special about being special? Special means you are unforgettable. Special means your customers can’t live without you. Special means that if we eliminated your business tomorrow you would be missed. Special means you stop competing on price and start competing on relationship, innovation and radical differentiation. Special makes the comparison with your competitors totally irrelevant because you give your customers something they can’t get anywhere else. Find out how gutsy, go-for-it leaders in some of the most creative companies in the world “de-commoditize” their businesses and grow. Then, build your own strategy for blowing the doors off business-as-usual!
Will Work For A Cause!
What inspires impassioned employees to come to work fully awake, fully engaged, firing on all cylinders? What causes people to keep going when the critics fire arrows at new ideas and the demons of self-doubt set in? What compels people to change? Kevin will answer these questions by taking you into some of the most successful companies in the world and showing you how they raise the level of energy and engagement—even in the most mundane and routine jobs—by defining the business as a noble, heroic cause. Start a movement! Movements breed commitment; not compliance. People opt-in to movements. They don’t need to be motivated or micro-managed; they motivate themselves and set their own rigorous targets. They don’t need to be cajoled into collaboration; they willingly reach across boundaries because their passion for the cause is bigger than their need to control information or their fear of change. Are your people just doing a job, or do they bring the maniacal focus and missionary zeal of a crusader to the game? Dr. Freiberg will show you how to give your team a direct line-of-sight to a larger cause that releases a powerful flow of PASSION, PRIDE, PERSEVERANCE, AND PRODUCTIVITY.
Innovate or Perish!
What if someone in your space came up with a product or service that radically outperformed yours and cost half as much? Someone is going to start a revolution that amazes your customers and disrupts your industry. And, they will define the rules by which everyone else must play the game. Why can’t it be you? Find out what happens in a culture where people aren’t afraid to question the unquestionable, leaders encourage risk by rewarding intelligent failure, unlikely partnerships lead to ingenuity you couldn’t achieve on your own, and designers look beyond customer imagination for what’s next. Through real-life examples and powerful case studies, Kevin Freiberg will show your audience how the most innovative companies in the world continually load their pipelines with great ideas. He will demonstrate how limitations can be springboards to creativity and more elegant solutions. What if you could create a culture of “constructive discontent” where everyone believes that innovation is his or her job and no one is satisfied with the status quo? This presentation has received accolades from business leaders in companies all over the world—primarily because Dr. Freiberg demystifies innovation, clearly illustrates what innovators do that others don’t do and offers a roadmap for growth in an uncertain world.
Kevin Freiberg Books
Bochy Ball! The Chemistry of Winning and Losing in Baseball, Business, and Life
Purchase BookBe A Person of Impact: 12 Strategies to be the CEO of Your Future
Purchase BookCAUSE!: A Business Strategy for Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness
Purchase BookDo Something Now!
Purchase BookNanovation: How a Little Car Can Teach the World to Think Big
Purchase BookBoom!: 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors Off Business-As-Usual
Purchase BookNuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success
Purchase BookGuts!: Companies That Blow the Doors off Business-as-Usual
Purchase BookKevin Freiberg Videos
Kevin Freiberg Articles
Kevin Freiberg Speaker Testimonials
Home-run! Let’s put him on the payroll.
- | World Champion San Francisco Giants
Kevin, you were a huge hit! In fact your presentation was so powerful and by far the best external speaker we have brought in to date. Several of the subsequent speakers referred back to the key points you made. Thank you for your partnership, shared experiences, and we look forward to continuing our relationship.
- | Vail Resorts
Kevin’s message was extremely relevant and he even used our words—people were amazed how he could talk directly to us vs. the usual canned talks.
- | ConocoPhillips
Kevin was wonderful! He truly fired everyone up to catalyze change.
- | AARP