Peter Sheahan

Peter Sheahan is the CEO of Karrikins Group and the author of seven books including Flip and Matter, who has spent 15 years advising leaders at organizations including Apple, Goldman Sachs, Chick-fil-A, DeBeers, and AT&T on business transformation and competitive advantage. He speaks on disruption, strategy, and creating value in rapidly changing markets, challenging leaders to grow personally before they can take their organizations to the next level. Peter’s belief that commercial growth follows personal growth gives his presentations a depth that pure strategy speakers rarely deliver.

Standing in the Fire With Leaders
Peter’s consulting work is not theoretical. He has grown his own companies by helping high-performing organizations accelerate their transformation, and he brings that hands-on experience to every engagement. His message provokes leaders to get bigger by getting better, pursuing work that matters and solving higher-order problems rather than chasing incremental improvements.

Purpose as a Growth Strategy
Peter’s frameworks show that when leaders are true to their purpose, they naturally gravitate toward the challenges that create the most value for customers, employees, and shareholders. His books have been translated into multiple languages and adopted by organizations seeking to move beyond commodity competition. His keynotes deliver provocative strategies for business transformation, competitive differentiation, and building the kind of purpose-driven leadership that creates lasting value in complex, changing markets.

Growing in Uncertain Times

Turning Challenges into Opportunity and Change into Competitive Advantage. Stimulating a culture of growth amidst uncertainty begins with leaders taking ownership for their changed reality, unleashing an ambition that drives their team forward, and aligning their people to the new ways of working necessary to create value in the current environment. In this case-study rich session, Peter Sheahan will unpack how to balance the need for prompt action with the need to maintain the capacity, capability, and engagement required to make the most of the massive opportunities that inevitably emerge from crisis. And he will explore the unique application of these insights in a mostly virtual world.

High Performance in a Virtual World

Maintaining a Culture of Accountability and High Engagement in the Face of COVID-19. Culture is a science, not an art. With the right mindset, team dynamics, and environment, a leader can intentionally curate a culture of accountability, innovation, and high engagement. Doing so remotely presents unique but surmountable challenges that can be overcome by creating a setting for your team where it’s psychologically safe to ask for help, behave in new ways, and pursue progress over perfection. The truth is people don’t really know how to work together as effectively virtually, and collaboration, productivity, and well-being are all known to suffer when we get it wrong. Using real-world examples, Peter will unpack a blueprint for driving high performance and apply it directly to the new ways of working we must all embrace as a part of social distance based norms.

Leading with Intentional Optimism:

Make the Shift from Defense to Offense and Seize the Opportunities in Disruption. Leaders must be pragmatic in the face of the real challenges presented by Covid-19, however at some point they must choose whether they are going to create their future reality or passively accept their fate. Intentional Optimism is a new way of leading that unleashes the agency and influence we all have over our reality and combines the importance of pragmatism with the power of boldness to position ourselves to make the most of opportunity. Participants will explore their own leadership archetype and learn how to avoid the dangers of cynicism over skepticism and dreaming over optimism. The outcome will be the intentional amplification of optimism at a time we need it most.