David Rowan

The Leading Authority on Technology's Impact on Business
Founding UK editor-in-chief, WIRED
Non-Bullshit Innovation: 17 Proven Ways To Transform How You Work”

David Rowan is today’s leading speaker on how emerging technologies will impact business — and how leaders should prepare now. He’s given more than 600 keynotes around the world, and has moderated events for the World Economic Forum, the biggest global companies, and governments. As founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine in the UK, David came to know the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Didi, Spotify, Twitter and countless other ambitious startups from Tel Aviv to Shenzhen. His best-selling book, “Non-Bullshit Innovation: 17 Proven Ways To Transform How You Work” (Penguin), is a 20-country quest to identify genuine innovation in the face of technology-led disruption. The book sets out 17 proven strategies for future-proofing a successful business — from “Turn products into services” to “Build an ecosystem”.

David spends his time at tech’s cutting edge: visiting university research labs and startup clusters to meet the people building the future. He’s invested in more than 160 early-stage tech companies, and runs venture funds that invest in health-tech and climate-tech.

David has been a technology columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times, and at WIRED he built a conference and a consulting business. And he is still searching for the future.
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David will customise a talk for your meeting, or will moderate your event in his accessible journalistic style. He deconstructs tech trends in real time, unpacking how major innovations like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and more, are changing businesses and consumers. He delivers fascinating and knowledgeable presentations full of insight into the future of technology together with lively examples and engaging clips which reveal that in some cases the future is already here. He’s typically asked to speak about how innovation and technology are likely to impact a particular sector (from manufacturing to motoring), and what incumbent companies can do to protect themselves. He customises every talk, and in recent months has addressed audiences in finance, fashion, utilities, television, insurance, shipping, travel, real estate and business software. He also speaks a lot about changing business models, and how companies can develop a culture of innovation.‍

His recent themes include:

‍• Why this is AI's "Netscape moment" — and what that means for your business
‍• How to understand the impact of generative AI
‍• What exponential technologies mean for the next five years in retail/real estate/finance/media/healthcare, etc
‍• What a 20-country quest taught me about building an authentic culture of innovation
‍• What carbon accounting will mean for every business
‍• What talent wants in the new world of work

David Rowan makes an inspired choice as a speaker, especially at technology-themed conferences and other events. To book him for your Event, contact a Prime Performers Booking Agent via the online booking enquiry form or alternatively call us on 020 3500 3331.

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Testimonials

I wanted to thank you for your time to moderate the G8 Innovation Conference on 14 June. You set the tone for the day perfectly, engaging the audience and steering the presenters through a very full agenda. The feedback from the day has been overwhelmingly positive, which is largely due to your dynamism, good humour and professionalism. The team here and I are extremely grateful for the part you played in making the day a success and helping to put innovation on the G8 agenda.

Thank you so much for coming to Barcelona to speak to us all. The content was just right and left us inspired but also questioning about the way forward and how to approach the future with our clients. I'm sure there will be further requests for your participation by some of the markets judging by the feedback I am getting.

Thank you so much for joining us at our European Capital Markets Conference last week in Amsterdam. We have received extremely positive feedback from our clients and CBRE staff alike and I think you presentation hit the spot in challenging our guests to think about the impact of new media and technology. I am sure the sale of iPhone’s will have increased since last week as our clients begin to understand their true power!