Chris Hirst
Most leadership content fails the test of the Monday morning meeting. It is too abstract to act on, too academic to argue with, and too polished to survive contact with a tired workforce halfway through its third restructure. Senior leaders need a working set of behaviours, not a philosophy.
Chris Hirst is a former Global CEO of Havas Creative Group and author of three No Bullsh*t books, including the UK Business Book of the Year 2020, who helps senior leaders run organisations and lead change with discipline rather than theatre.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Chris Hirst
- He has actually run a 10,000-person global P&L. The leadership argument comes from a CEO seat, not a research role.
- He took Grey London from underperformer to a business that tripled in size and quadrupled profit in five years, then took Havas from also-ran to second in Campaign Magazine’s global rankings in three. That is the exact operating story most boards are asking for.
- No Bullsh*t Leadership won UK Business Book of the Year, an independently awarded credential rather than self-published positioning. The argument now runs across three books, on leadership, change, and career, together selling more than 100,000 copies in seven languages.
- His content travels into operating environments because it was built for one. Recent clients include Google, PepsiCo, PwC, Deloitte, Nissan, and Warner Music Group.
- He gives leadership teams a shared language for the small, repeatable behaviours that determine whether change actually happens, not another model to put on a slide.
Biography highlights
- Former Global CEO, Havas Creative Group, leading more than 10,000 people across more than 100 countries.
- Took Havas from also-ran to second in Campaign Magazine’s global network rankings in three years; shortlisted by Campaign as Global CEO of the Year, 2022.
- Former UK CEO of Grey London (WPP); the agency tripled in size and quadrupled profit during his tenure.
- Author of three books, No Bullsht Leadership (UK Business Book of the Year 2020), No Bullsht Change, and Indispensable (Pan Macmillan), together selling more than 100,000 copies in seven languages.
- Host of the No Bullsht Leadership podcast (with Intelligence Squared), more than 500,000 downloads, and founder of the No Bullsht Leadership Academy.
- Now a Fractional Chair and Non-Executive Director to scaling companies; graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford (Engineering Science) and Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.
Biography
Grey London was a struggling agency inside WPP when Chris Hirst took over as UK CEO. Five years later it had tripled in size and quadrupled profit. He then ran Havas Creative Group globally, more than 10,000 people across more than 100 countries, taking the network from also-ran to second in Campaign Magazine’s global rankings in three years. Campaign shortlisted him as Global CEO of the Year in 2022.
That operating record is the foundation of his leadership work. No Bullsht Leadership, published by Profile Books in 2019, was named UK Business Book of the Year 2020. It argues that leadership is a small set of repeatable behaviours, not a personality type, and is written for people running things rather than studying them.
The argument now runs across three books, No Bullsht Leadership, No Bullsht Change, and Indispensable, together selling more than 100,000 copies in seven languages. It also reaches a podcast made with Intelligence Squared, a monthly Management Today column, and the No Bullsht Leadership Academy. Organisations that have worked with him include Google, PepsiCo, PwC, Nissan, and Warner Music Group. He still runs businesses too, now as a Fractional Chair and Non-Executive Director to scaling companies.
What he gives a serious audience is rare on the leadership circuit: a former Global CEO who reduces leadership to behaviours a team can use the same week. His own equation, Impact equals Clarity times Action, is the spine of it, tested across more than a decade of running businesses and a billion-dollar global P&L.
Key speaking topics
- Practical leadership and decision-making
- Leading transformational change
- Building high-performing cultures
- Turnaround and growth leadership
- Leading teams through AI-driven change
- Executive presence and credibility
- The behaviours of effective CEOs
Ideal for
- CEOs, CHROs and executive teams running through restructure or growth
- Senior leadership populations inside large organisations rebuilding culture
- High-potential leadership programmes and talent cohorts
- Boards and partner groups in professional services and agencies
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of leadership stripped of jargon and slogans
- His core equation for impact, Clarity times Action, and what it means when either side falls to zero
- A way to read culture as the behaviour of leadership, not a values poster, and to spot a culture problem before it becomes a performance one
- The 40/70 rule for making decisions without waiting for complete information
- A direct, occasionally uncomfortable challenge to current leadership habits
Talks
A practical framework built around the core argument of the book: that effective leaders share a small set of repeatable behaviours, not a personality type.
Key takeaways:
- The five rules that, in his experience, separate leaders who get things done from those who do not
- His leadership equation, Impact equals Clarity times Action, and what it changes about how teams operate
- How to apply the framework inside teams under pressure or in transition
Why organisations over-invest in planning and under-invest in doing, and how leaders force progress without waiting for perfect conditions.
Key takeaways:
- Why the hunt for the perfect moment is usually a way of avoiding the decision
- The 40/70 rule for acting on incomplete information
- How to move a team’s energy from planning cycles to delivery
A talk on culture as an operating asset, drawn from running global agency businesses where culture was the only sustainable advantage.
Key takeaways:
- A working definition of culture that senior teams can act on
- The leadership behaviours that build or quietly erode it
- How to diagnose a culture problem before it becomes a performance one
How leaders drive change through an organisation when the workforce is tired and the ground keeps shifting, drawn from a decade of running change programmes and the argument in No Bullsh*t Change.
Key takeaways:
- Why most change programmes stall in the same predictable places
- How senior leaders should behave during sustained change
- The early signals that a change effort is working, before the metrics confirm it