Dominic Alldis
Most leadership development produces understanding, not behaviour change. Executives leave programmes able to describe alignment, trust, and collective decision-making – but without having experienced what those dynamics actually feel like under pressure. The gap is not conceptual; it is experiential, and it is the gap that most organisations have no structured way to close.
Dominic Alldis, jazz pianist, orchestral conductor, and founder of Music & Management addresses the gap between understanding leadership and practising it, using the live dynamics of orchestra and jazz band to give executives a direct, felt experience of alignment, trust, and collective decision-making.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Dominic Alldis
- His sessions place executives inside a live orchestra or jazz band, making the dynamics of leadership – alignment, trust, listening under pressure – physically felt rather than conceptually described. No other leadership format uses professional live performance as the working medium in this way.
- The classical-vs-jazz framework gives organisations a precise vocabulary for a problem most struggle to name: when to follow the score and when to improvise – the alignment-versus-autonomy tension that runs through every complex team.
- The Orchestra Experience has been part of Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008, with endorsement from the programme’s Kravis Professor of Business – giving his approach academic standing alongside conference-format delivery.
- As an active professional musician and faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music since 1991, he brings current, first-person experience of high-performance ensembles – not a career retrospective applied to business.
- His client base runs from Microsoft, Google and Deutsche Bank to the United Nations, with executive education work at INSEAD, IMD Lausanne, London Business School and Columbia – evidence of trust from serious institutions across sectors and formats.
Biography highlights
- Jazz pianist, orchestral conductor, arranger and singer; professional career began in Paris in 1982 and spans jazz clubs, concert halls and festival stages internationally
- Founder and Director of Music & Management, delivering music-based leadership development programmes for corporations and business schools worldwide
- Faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 1991, teaching jazz improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers; Honorary Associate since 2000; Steinway Artist since 2010
- Music & Management has delivered the Orchestra Experience to Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008; executive education work also includes INSEAD/CEDEP, IMD Lausanne and London Business School
- Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, eBay, Deutsche Bank, LVMH, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, BCG, PwC, Mandarin Oriental and the United Nations
- Author of two books published by Hal Leonard Corporation: “A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony” and “A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation”
- Founder of the Canzona Chamber Orchestra (2010), performing classical repertoire and jazz crossover projects
Biography
The tension between structure and spontaneity runs through every high-performing team. An orchestra delivers the score with precision; a jazz band improvises around shared norms. Dominic Alldis is a jazz pianist, conductor, and founder of Music & Management and has spent more than two decades translating this contrast into a direct learning experience for executives. The question he brings to business audiences is concrete: when should a team follow the score, and when should it improvise?
His framework draws from a professional career that spans both traditions. Alldis studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, played jazz residencies in Paris and London, conducted orchestras across four continents, and has taught improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he holds the title of Honorary Associate) since 1991. That dual expertise is the engine of his practice: not music as illustration, but musical performance as a live laboratory for the dynamics organisations actually need to develop.
Music & Management has embedded the Orchestra Experience in Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008 – endorsed by Paul Ingram, Kravis Professor of Business. Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, Deutsche Bank, LVMH and the United Nations. His executive education work spans INSEAD, IMD Lausanne and London Business School. Testimonials from CHROs, managing partners and CEOs consistently name the sessions as the most memorable leadership experience their organisations have produced.
His books – “A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony” and “A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation”, both published by Hal Leonard Corporation – reflect the same bridging instinct: rigorous musical thinking made accessible to practitioners who come from a different tradition.
Key speaking topics
- Leadership through musical performance
- Classical and jazz models of organisational alignment
- Collaboration and collective decision-making
- Listening as a leadership competency
- Creativity and improvisation in organisations
- Change and adaptability in complex environments
- Team dynamics and organisational trust
Ideal for
- Senior executive teams at strategic off-sites, leadership summits, and cultural transformation programmes
- CHROs and L&D Directors designing experiential leadership development at executive level
- Business schools and executive education programmes seeking immersive, non-traditional learning formats
- CEOs and boards seeking a high-impact, memorable format that connects music, leadership, and organisational performance
Audience outcomes
- A direct, experiential encounter with how alignment, trust, and collective decision-making operate in real time – not as concepts, but as felt dynamics
- A working vocabulary for the tension between structured coordination and creative autonomy in teams
- Greater awareness of listening as an operational leadership practice, not only a communication skill
- New perspective on how change and improvisation can be navigated without losing coherent direction
- Personal observations about their own leadership behaviour, prompted by the musical experience rather than delivered through instruction
Talks
A conductor and jazz musician uses live orchestral and jazz performance to draw direct parallels between musical dynamics and the realities of organisational leadership.
Key takeaways:
- How orchestral leadership and jazz improvisation represent distinct but complementary models for team performance
- The relationship between precision, trust, and adaptability in high-performance ensembles
- Practical leadership principles grounded in the structural contrast between composed and improvisational performance
Participants sit within a live orchestra, experience a performance, and engage in facilitated discussion on leadership, collaboration, listening, and trust.
Key takeaways:
- First-hand experience of leadership from within a high-performance ensemble, not as observer but as participant
- How individual contribution and collective direction coexist – and what breaks that relationship
- Why listening and trust function as operational competencies, not only relational ones
A live jazz band explores improvisation, creativity, adaptability, and risk as models for operating in fast-moving, uncertain environments.
Key takeaways:
- Improvisation as a structured approach to uncertainty – not the absence of direction but a different relationship to it
- How creativity under pressure is managed and sustained in high-performing jazz ensembles
- The relationship between risk, change, and coherent direction in dynamic organisations
A string quartet performance explores the precision, discipline, and interdependence required for consistent high-level team performance.
Key takeaways:
- How precision and trust operate together rather than in tension
- The role of individual discipline in producing collective output
- Consistency and standards as leadership responsibilities rather than individual traits
A comparison of classical and jazz approaches examines how organisations can hold strategic alignment and creative independence together – rather than treating them as opposites.
Key takeaways:
- The structural difference between alignment and uniformity in team performance
- How autonomy and direction can coexist productively within the same team
- A practical framework for integrating discipline and creative latitude across different parts of an organisation
A well-known classical work is reimagined by a culturally diverse group of musicians, using the process of reinterpretation to explore change, collaboration across difference, and the possibilities within established systems.
Key takeaways:
- How transformation works through reinterpretation rather than replacement
- The role of diverse perspectives in producing something new from something familiar
- What change looks and feels like from the inside of a high-performance, cross-cultural team
A participatory team activity using percussion to surface the dynamics of skill acquisition, coordination, negotiation, and collective timing.
Key takeaways:
- Direct experience of teamwork under conditions of unfamiliarity and time pressure
- Awareness of negotiation and coordination dynamics within a group working toward a shared output
- Reflection on how new skills are acquired and integrated at team level
A team-building activity using percussion to highlight new skill acquisition, teamwork, negotiation, creativity and time management.
Key takeaways:
- Practical experience of teamwork in action
- Awareness of negotiation and coordination within groups
- Understanding of skill development and time management in collaborative tasks
Videos
Testimonials
Dominic Alldis's Articles
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Europe | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Middle East & Africa | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| South America | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| United Kingdom | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US East Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US West Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |