Adam Markel
Leaders are being asked to absorb wave after wave of change without losing decision quality. The cost shows up before burnout, in slower judgement, narrower thinking, and quiet disengagement at the top of the organisation. Resilience at this level is a capacity that has to be built deliberately, not a recovery message delivered after the damage is done.
Adam Markel is a resilience researcher and former CEO who helps senior leaders convert constant change into a source of operating advantage rather than a tax on their judgement.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Adam Markel
- Author of Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Pivot, giving leadership audiences a researched framework rather than a personal story repurposed as advice.
- Co-Founder and Chief Researcher of WORKWELL, where his work translates resilience research into measurable cultural inputs for senior teams.
- Operator credibility from 18 years as a trial attorney and a multi-year run as CEO of a professional training business; senior buyers get someone who has run a P&L, not only studied one.
- Track record with operating businesses under pressure, including Medtronic and Jack in the Box, working with leadership audiences rather than only HR and L&D.
Biography highlights
- Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life
- Author of Change Proof, published by McGraw-Hill in 2022
- Co-Founder and Chief Researcher, WORKWELL
- Host of The Change Proof Podcast
- TEDx speaker
- Former CEO of Peak Potentials/New Peaks, a professional training enterprise; previously an 18-year trial attorney
Biography
Most senior leaders do not have a resilience problem in the wellness sense. They have a decision-quality problem. Repeated restructures, AI rollouts, and cost programmes compound, and the cost shows up in slower judgement long before it shows up in attrition. That is the gap Adam Markel’s work addresses.
His framework, set out in Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022), treats resilience as a capacity that organisations build into how leaders work, not a personal trait. The earlier Pivot, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, traced the same logic across career and business reinvention. Both books sit on top of his research practice at WORKWELL, where he is Co-Founder and Chief Researcher.
The credibility comes from a layered career. Eighteen years as a trial attorney, a multi-year run as CEO of the professional training business Peak Potentials, and several seasons as an ocean lifeguard before any of it. Senior audiences respond to the operator content; they have heard the resilience speech before, and what they recognise here is someone who has run a real enterprise through pressure.
The Change Proof Podcast and a steady stream of corporate engagements with operating businesses, Medtronic and Jack in the Box among them, keep his material tested against current leadership briefs rather than older keynote material.
Key speaking topics
- Leadership resilience under sustained change
- Change Proof: building organisational capacity for uncertainty
- Workplace culture and engagement
- Leading through restructure and reinvention
- Burnout prevention in senior teams
- Trust and connection in distributed workforces
Ideal for
- CEOs and executive committees facing repeated change cycles
- CHROs and people leaders responsible for senior-team resilience
- Leadership offsites and annual conferences for operating businesses
- Transformation and change leads owning multi-year programmes
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of resilience as an operating capacity, not a personal trait
- A diagnostic for where change fatigue is degrading senior decision quality
- Specific practices for recovery and renewal that fit inside a leader’s working week
- A frame for translating resilience research into culture and engagement decisions
- Language to use with their own teams about why this matters now
Talks
A keynote on building resilience as an operating capacity inside leadership teams.
Key takeaways:
- Why resilience is a leadership variable, not a wellness one
- How decision quality degrades under sustained change, and what to measure
- A practice set leaders can apply inside the working week
A talk on the link between recovery, renewal, and sustained performance at senior levels.
Key takeaways:
- The performance cost of unmanaged change load
- Habits and rituals that protect judgement under pressure
- How senior teams model resilience for the wider organisation
A keynote framed around leading through restructure, reinvention, and prolonged uncertainty.
Key takeaways:
- What leaders communicate, and what they avoid, during sustained change
- The difference between bouncing back and bouncing forward
- Specific moves to reset a fatigued leadership team
Videos
Testimonials
Books
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Asia Pacific | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| South America | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| United Kingdom | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US East Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |