Carl Honore
Organisations are structurally biased toward speed and most leaders know it is costing them. Decisions made too fast, problems solved too shallowly, and talent dismissed too early are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of a culture that treats pace as a virtue and age as a liability, rather than as variables to be managed.
Carl Honoré, journalist, author of In Praise of Slow, and the pioneer of the global Slow Movement, helps organisations understand why speed and youth bias are performance liabilities, and what it takes to build cultures that sustain output over time.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Carl Honoré
- He makes a specific, testable claim that most management culture resists: that slowing down is not a productivity concession but a competitive advantage, and he has two decades of cross-sector evidence to support it.
- His Slow Fix framework gives organisations a direct alternative to short-termism in problem-solving, not as a philosophical preference, but as a structured approach to decisions that actually hold.
- On ageing and the workforce, he converts a topic most organisations treat as a compliance or HR issue into a commercial argument: mixed-age teams outperform across measurable metrics, and ageism is a business risk, not just a social one.
- His work sits at the junction of two urgent organisational pressures – sustainable performance culture and the longevity economy – giving him a rare dual relevance for leadership teams and people functions simultaneously.
- As the originator of the Slow Movement – a framework covered by the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist and Time, among others – he brings a level of intellectual ownership that very few speakers in the workplace culture space can claim.
Biography highlights
- Author of In Praise of Slow (2004), Under Pressure, The Slow Fix, and Bolder – published in 36 languages, with bestseller listings across multiple countries
- Two main-stage TED Talks – “In Praise of Slowness” and “Why We Should Embrace Aging as an Adventure” – with combined views in the millions
- In Praise of Slow described by the Financial Times as the foundational text of the Slow Movement
- Journalist whose work has appeared in The Economist, Observer, National Post, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, and Time
- Named 2024 Advocate for Aging by Next Avenue and the American Society on Aging
- Creator and presenter of BBC Radio 4 series Status by Carl Honoré; previously presented The Slow Coach for BBC Radio 4 and Frantic Family Rescue for ABC TV Australia
- Bolder selected as BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and Reader’s Digest (UK) Book of the Month
- Graduated from the University of Edinburgh; reported across Europe and South America for over a decade before turning to books
Biography
Speed and youth are the two defaults of modern organisational culture. Carl Honoré has built a career and a global movement on the argument that both are miscalibrated, and that the evidence for changing them is stronger than most organisations acknowledge.
In Praise of Slow (2004), the book that gave the Slow Movement its name and its intellectual framework, made a counterintuitive claim: that choosing when to be fast, rather than defaulting to fast, is a more reliable route to performance. The Financial Times placed it as the foundational text of the movement. His third book, The Slow Fix, extended that argument into problem-solving, building the case that organisations addicted to quick responses consistently underperform against those willing to invest time in diagnosis and depth.
His more recent work, anchored in Bolder, applies the same analytical lens to age. The demographic case for rethinking older workers is well-established in research; the cultural and commercial case is Honoré’s contribution. His argument that ageism functions as a form of the same bias toward speed and novelty that distorts organisational decision-making, connects the two strands of his work into a coherent framework for leaders. In 2024, that work was recognised by both Next Avenue and the American Society on Aging, who named him an Advocate for Aging.
Trained as a journalist at The Economist, Observer, and Time, among other outlets, Honoré brings a mode of inquiry to organisational topics that is grounded in evidence gathered across cultures and sectors, not in a single industry or institutional context. His two main-stage TED Talks have been viewed millions of times; his books are published in 36 languages.
Key speaking topics
- Pace as organisational strategy
- The Slow Movement and workplace performance
- Multigenerational workforce design
- Ageism as a commercial risk
- Sustainable performance and decision quality
- The Slow Fix: problem-solving under pressure
- Status, hierarchy, and organisational culture
- Longevity and the future of work
Ideal for
- CHROs and people leaders designing age-inclusive workforces and addressing talent retention across generations
- CEOs and senior leadership teams examining whether performance culture is undermining the quality of decisions and the depth of problem-solving
- Boards and executive committees navigating the commercial implications of ageing demographics and multigenerational customer bases
- Culture transformation leads and change management functions rethinking pace, productivity, and sustainable output
Audience outcomes
- A clear framework for diagnosing where organisational speed becomes a liability – in decision-making, leadership, and creative work
- Evidence-based understanding of why multigenerational teams outperform and what structural changes enable that performance
- A reframed view of ageism as a commercial and strategic problem, not only a social or legal one
- Practical approaches drawn from the Slow Fix framework for tackling complex problems without defaulting to short-term solutions
- Greater awareness of the connection between pace culture and youth bias – and why addressing one typically requires addressing both
Talks
An examination of when and how modulating pace strengthens performance in the modern workplace, drawing on research and case studies from competitive industries worldwide.
Key takeaways:
- How to identify where organisational speed is working against performance rather than for it
- Why slowing down in specific contexts enhances productivity, creativity, and strategic decision-making
- Practical approaches to improving leadership, collaboration, and problem-solving through deliberate pace control
A research-led examination of why mixed-age teams outperform, and what organisations must change to benefit from them.
Key takeaways:
- Evidence challenging the assumption that ageing workforces are a drag on performance
- Why multigenerational teams outperform on creativity, social intelligence, and knowledge transfer
- Practical approaches to reducing age bias and strengthening cross-generational collaboration
A research-informed case for treating the longevity revolution as an organisational opportunity, not a liability.
Key takeaways:
- The scientific and cultural shifts reshaping the economics of longer lives and later-career performance
- Case studies of later-life achievement across sectors and disciplines
- A reframed view of ageing as a stage of competitive advantage – for individuals and the organisations that employ them
An evidence-based exploration of how to engage the over-50s consumer market, drawing on international research and campaign case studies.
Key takeaways:
- The economic scale and spending influence of the over-50s demographic
- What distinguishes successful global marketing campaigns targeting older consumers
- Strategies for building brand relevance with audiences that most organisations systematically underserve