Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Most organisations can articulate their strategy. Very few can execute it at the required speed or scale. The gap is not a planning failure; it is a leadership failure rooted in how organisations are structured: too many initiatives running simultaneously, too little executive ownership of individual projects, and a persistent confusion between overseeing transformation and actually sponsoring it. Senior leaders who mistake activity for progress will keep launching programmes that consume resources and stall before they deliver.
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, a strategy execution expert and creator of the ‘Project Economy’ framework, published twice in Harvard Business Review, helps CEOs and transformation leaders redesign how their organisations lead change at speed and scale, so that strategic ambition consistently translates into delivered results.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
- His “Project Economy” argument, developed across seven books, two Harvard Business Review cover articles, and the 2026 book Powered by Projects (HBR Press), gives boards and CEOs an evidence-based framework for why transformation fails and what structural changes are required to fix it.
- He provides the most specific publicly available diagnosis of executive project failure: leaders sponsor too many initiatives, misunderstand their own sponsorship role, and treat execution as a delegated technical function rather than a strategic leadership responsibility.
- His current C-suite work focuses on execution speed and the integration of AI into prioritisation, sponsorship, and decision-making, addressing the practical mechanics of moving transformation programmes faster rather than only managing them better.
- His 2026 “Project-Driven Organization” model offers transformation leaders a concrete operating architecture beyond agile and beyond PMO reform for building organisations capable of delivering sustained change.
- A 25-year corporate career at PwC, BNP Paribas Fortis, Fortis Bank, and GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, including leading the post-merger integration of ABN AMRO, one of the largest acquisitions in financial services history, means his frameworks are stress-tested against the mechanics of real, large-scale transformation.
- Twice recognised in the Thinkers50 ranking (2023, 2025) and the most published project management author in Harvard Business Review, his arguments carry institutional credibility in conversations at board and C-suite level.
Biography highlights
- Creator of the “Project Economy” concept; author of the featured Harvard Business Review articles “The Project Economy Has Arrived” (Nov/Dec 2021) and “The Project-Driven Organization” (Jan/Feb 2026)
- Author of Powered by Projects: Leading Your Organization in the Transformation Age (HBR Press, 2026) and the Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook (HBR Press, 2021)
- Twice included in the Thinkers50 ranking of the world’s most influential management thinkers (2023, 2025); recipient of the Thinkers50 “Ideas into Practice” award; most published project management author in Harvard Business Review
- Fellow and former global Chairman, Project Management Institute (2016); currently Vice President, Association for Project Management (APM)
- Senior corporate career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (global lead, project and change management), BNP Paribas Fortis, Fortis Bank, and GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines
- Visiting professor at Duke CE, IE Business School, Solvay, Vlerick, École des Ponts, and Skolkovo; MBA, London Business School
- Founder of Projects & Company; co-founder of the Strategy Implementation Institute; creator of the Brightline Initiative; member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches
Biography
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez built the first phase of his career inside the machinery of large-scale transformation. At PricewaterhouseCoopers, he became global lead for project and change management. At Fortis Bank, he led the post-merger integration of ABN AMRO (at the time, the largest acquisition in financial services history). At GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, he served as Director of the Program Management Office. Those twenty-five years gave him a precise understanding of where transformation programmes break down, and why.
The conclusion he drew is counterintuitive: the problem is not project management. The problem is leadership. His “Project Economy” argument, first published in Harvard Business Review in 2021, extended in his January 2026 book Powered by Projects (HBR Press) and a companion HBR article the same month, holds that projects are now the primary mechanism through which organisations create value. Most senior leaders, however, still manage them as a secondary, delegated activity. The result is a structural misalignment: transformation investment is spread too thin, executive ownership is ambiguous, and programmes stall not from lack of capability but from the absence of a structure built to execute at speed and scale.
The “Project-Driven Organization” framework he introduced in 2026 addresses this directly. It is not an argument for better project managers; it is a blueprint for how boards, CEOs, and transformation leads must redesign authority, resource allocation, and culture to make strategic execution a repeatable organisational capability. This is taught at Duke CE, IE Business School, Solvay, Vlerick, École des Ponts, and Skolkovo, and underpins advisory work with organisations including Nestlé, L’Oréal, Google, ING, and Moodys.
Twice included in the Thinkers50 ranking (2023 and 2025) and recipient of the Thinkers50 “Ideas into Practice” award, he is a Fellow and former global Chairman of the Project Management Institute and currently Vice President of the Association for Project Management. He is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and the most published project management author in Harvard Business Review.
Key speaking topics
- The Project Economy
- The Project-Driven Organization
- Transformation at scale and speed
- Strategy execution and organisational transformation
- Executive sponsorship and leadership accountability
- Portfolio prioritisation and strategic focus
- AI in accelerating execution
Ideal for
- CEOs, COOs, and boards overseeing large-scale transformation programmes
- Chief Transformation Officers and strategy implementation leads
- PMO directors seeking executive-level alignment and mandate
- Executive education cohorts at business schools focused on strategy execution and organisational change
Audience outcomes
- A reframed understanding of why transformation programmes fail – and the specific leadership behaviours that drive or undermine them
- Practical criteria for prioritising strategic initiatives when resources are constrained and demand is unlimited
- A working model of the Project-Driven Organization: what it looks like, how it differs from agile, and how to begin the transition
- Clarity on what active executive project sponsorship means in practice – and how it differs from oversight
- Familiarity with the Project Economy argument as a framework for making the case internally for structural change in how transformation is governed
Talks
Explores how combining structured planning with agile flexibility helps organisations keep projects on track in fast-changing environments.
Key takeaways:
- How hybrid project management integrates disciplined delivery with adaptive iteration
- Practical approaches to maintaining budget and timeline discipline without sacrificing responsiveness
- How to keep projects anchored to organisational value when conditions shift
Presents the case for restructuring organisations around projects, not operations, as the primary model for creating value and leading transformation at scale.
Key takeaways:
- Why agile alone is insufficient for sustained organisational transformation
- The eight structural levers leaders must pull to move from an operations-centric to a project-powered organisation
- How to decentralise decision-making and align resources behind the initiatives that matter most
Examines how artificial intelligence is changing how projects are planned, managed, and delivered, and what this means for project leaders and senior sponsors.
Key takeaways:
- A clear framework for understanding AI’s role in project planning and execution
- How AI tools can reduce risk and accelerate decision-making within transformation programmes
- The leadership capabilities that remain human-dependent in an AI-augmented project environment