Ben Casnocha

Ben Casnocha founded his first company at age 14, was named one of America’s top young entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek before age 20, and later served as Chief of Staff in the Office of the Chairman at LinkedIn. He speaks on entrepreneurship, talent management, the future of work, and how professionals can apply startup thinking to accelerate their careers and build stronger organizations. He is co-author, with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, of two New York Times bestsellers: The Start-Up of You and The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.

The Alliance
Casnocha’s framework for the modern employer-employee relationship — the ‘tour of duty’ model — has become one of the most widely cited management frameworks of the past decade, taught in MBA programs worldwide and praised by executives at GE, Google, and beyond. HR Magazine named him one of the top trendsetters in the talent industry. His keynotes on The Alliance have been delivered to audiences from SHRM India to Deutsche Bank to Goldman Sachs.

The Start-Up of You
Based on the number-one New York Times bestseller translated into more than 15 languages, this keynote helps professionals build networks with intention, take intelligent career risks, and adapt to a working world that rewards entrepreneurial thinking. Casnocha co-founded Village Global, a venture capital firm managing more than $225 million.

Ben Casnocha delivers keynotes on entrepreneurship, talent management, career strategy, and the future of work.

The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Network Age

If you want to recruit, train, and retain the best people for your company, understand this: the old employer-employee compact is dead. In today’s entrepreneurial age, the best employees are not pledging lifelong loyalty to your company — they want to sign up for “tours of duty.” They want to be “entrepreneurial” at work. Ben presents a revolutionary way to make a new talent alliance work for your company.

The Start-Up of You

In a keynote based on his New York Times bestselling book with LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Ben presents a blueprint for how to thrive in the new world of work. The key: learn to think like an entrepreneur and treat your career like it’s a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you. Learn the Silicon Valley strategies that can jump-start your career, from crafting flexible career plans, to building genuine professional relationships, to finding breakout opportunities. This is a bold guide to thriving in a world where every professional must be the entrepreneur of his or her own life.

Life Entrepreneurship for Students

Entrepreneur and author Ben Casnocha started his first company at age 12 and wrote his first book at 19. In a keynote aimed to inspire students to take action to improve both themselves and the world, Ben presents a blueprint for how to think outside the box and take an entrepreneurial approach to life. In this inspirational yet practical keynote, students will learn from a generational peer the entrepreneurial strategies that will advance themselves no matter their industry of interest and will feel empowered to confront the economic challenges facing their generation.