Geoff Colvin
Bestselling author and senior editor-at-large, Fortune Magazine helping leaders respond to disruptive trends impacting business
- Author •
- Futurist •
- Journalist
The best companies and leaders win by confronting reality faster than the competition. Geoff Colvin of Fortune delivers valuable insights to help them do just that. His unique perspective stems from unparalleled access to top global business leaders who tell him what they’re seeing, thinking, and doing.
Geoff Colvin's videos
What Geoff Colvin's clients say
"Thanks so very much for your moderating today. I felt relaxed and right at home."
"Once again your stewardship of the business sessions opened the door for a truly interactive and valuable dialogue for everyone. Your depth of understanding of the challenges these companies are facing and the opportunities that lie ahead added tremendously to our conversations."
"What a master! I was a bit worried when we got word that he wouldn’t be using any slides but everybody loved him. And for the panel, he conducted the “interviews” and wove it all together seamlessly. He had 4 people he had never met but got their best thinking and made it relate to the audience. We were all very impressed."
"No surprise, Geoff was articulate and insightful, thoughtful on global and fiscal issues affecting industry and candid on impressions of leadership. Not to mention, a wonderful man who I will forever be indebted to."
"“Geoff did a fantastic job and really set the stage for the remainder of the day and his perspectives were repeated during later sessions.”"
"He was so awesome!!! Thank you so much for sending him to us! He was amazing."
"Thank you very much for speaking at our Summit –I got fantastic feedback on your message! It was uplifting and inspiring, and you certainly made me look good!"
"A quick thank you again for a wonderful talk last night. I received great feedback from our group -everyone thought you were insightful and engaging. Particularly, I heard, “Spot on.” As mentioned, please be in touch if you would like a reference for future speaking engagements; I would be happy to help in the format most useful to you."
"Thank you for your email and for inspiring my team! The feedback is unanimous, they loved your presentation, the Q&A that followed and how you inspired them and boosted their confidence. That was exactly my goal. Thank you."
"Thank youso much for your participation in the first annual L’ATTITUDE event! Your participation, both as participant and moderator was brilliant. Your [precision], command of facts and data AND unique ability to weave it into a logical, easy to understand outcomeis special."
"I can’t tell you how many people, customers and employees, came up to me and said how good your session was. Honestly, it set a tone that I was hoping for so to me it was a huge win. I also appreciate you filling in the time gap on such short notice."
"In a word: fantastic! Geoff really was perfect for this. He kept the conversation lively. Geoff really knocked it out of the ballpark."
"It was GREAT. We have only heard great things. Geoff tailored it to the audience. He is a gem!"
"Geoff turned in two outstanding performances for Commonfund. His grasp of business issues is second to none and his engaging style consistently pulls the best comments from our panelists. What more could one ask? But actually Geoff delivers more without our asking. He is one of the most genuinely respectful and caring people on the speaking circuit. And despite his vast business knowledge and superior interviewing skill, he hasn’t a trace of ego."
"Thank you for joining me last week at our THINK Forum in New York and for moderating our sessions on “The Promise of Cognitive Systems and Watson” and “The Future of Computing – Augmenting Human Intelligence.” I have to say that your skill as a moderator is unmatched, and your comments during the conversations were terrific. You were able to lead our speakers into valuable dialogues about their experiences working with Watson and the possibilities of cognitive computing. I know our audience benefited from your expertise, and several attendees commented specifically to me on these thought-provoking sessions."
"Once again your stewardship of the business sessions opened the door for a truly interactive and valuable dialogue for everyone. Your depth of understanding of the challenges these companies are facing and the opportunities that lie ahead added tremendously to our conversations."
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Geoff Colvin's 2022 biography
Geoff Colvin’s Background
As a result, Geoff can provide audiences with a clearer path for an uncertain future. Geoff unpacks actionable insights on the economic, market, political, and technological forces driving disruptive change. Geoff’s columns and cover stories in Fortune have earned him millions of loyal fans, many of whom also hear him on the CBS Radio Network, where he reaches seven million listeners each week.
Geoff Colvin is author of four books including the groundbreaking international bestseller Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else. His latest book is The New York Times bestseller Humans are Underrated which looks at the future of work and how humans will fit into a workplace filled with robots and smart technology.
As Fortune magazine’s senior editor-at-large, Geoff Colvin is now in his fourth decade at Fortune. He is one of business journalism’s sharpest and most respected commentators on leadership, management, globalization, government regulation, corporate governance, competition, the economy, the InfoTech revolution, human performance and related issues.
In addition to his daily CBS Radio Network segments, Geoff has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, Squawk Box, CBS This Morning, ABC’s World News Tonight, CNN, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, and dozens of other programs. He also served as anchor of Wall $treet Week with Fortune on PBS.
In addition to speaking, Geoff is also a brilliant panel moderator, emcee and interviewer whose subjects have included Jack Welch, Henry Kissinger, Richard Branson, the Prince of Wales, Bill Gates, Alan Greenspan, Steve Case, Tony Blair, Michael Dell, Ted Turner, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and many others.
Geoff is a respected author whose groundbreaking international bestseller, Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, has been published in a dozen languages. The Upside of the Downturn: Management Strategies for Difficult Timeswas named “Best Management Book of the Year” by Strategy + Business magazine. Geoff’s latest book is Humans are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will.
It’s based on the idea in his wildly popular Fortunearticle “In the Future Will There Be Any Work Left for People to Do?” It looks at the trend of technology displacing more jobs than it creates, and the ways humans will create value for their organizations and their careers in the changing economy. The ideas he shares have profound implications for every business and industry.
A native of Vermillion, South Dakota, Geoff Colvin is an honors graduate of Harvard with a degree in economics and has an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Geoff Colvin's 2022 talks & topics
Confronting Reality - Leading Ahead of Disruption
Every day can bring harsh new surprises. Economic and policy change. The competitor or new business model you never saw coming. Game-changing technology. Competing in the friction-free economy has leaders worrying most about what they don’t know. In his talk, Geoff Colvin leverages nearly 40 years at Fortune to arm audiences with valuable perspective on the trends driving business disruption, revealing how top leaders are confronting them right now.
Economic growth, consumer demand, interest rates, taxes, employment costs -these issues are transforming the business environment daily, and Geoff provides unparalleled insights in terms you won’t hear elsewhere. And while political winds may blow toward protectionism, the market trends powering the friction-free economy are technological and going strong, requiring swift and full attention. As a result, winning in business today demands extraordinary leadership acting on the best intelligence it can find. Geoff’s message is optimistic and energizing: opportunity is more widely available than ever and there will be winners -why shouldn’t it be you?
Confronting Technology - Are You Ready?
It’s a huge opportunity if you’re aware of it -a mortal threat if you’re not. The technology that revolutionizes lives and businesses is advancing at an increasing rate. Each stride forward is bigger than the last. A $1,000 laptop will possess the computing power of a human brain by 2023 and the computing power of all human brains by 2050. Are you ready for the opportunities and challenges such technology will bring? Most people aren’t.
Every business and businessperson now needs a new, uniquely modern competence: the discipline of confronting the reality of future tech, which we cannot intuitively picture, combined with the creativity of imagining what might be possible when that future arrives. Geoff describes what’s happening in an exciting, accessible way and shows how today’s most successful businesses are thinking and acting in new ways to own the incredible future. Geoff’s presentation will help align your people and make them more disciplined in confronting the future.
The Future of Work - How will Humans fit in?
With robots and smart machines doing so much of the work humans used to do, what is the future of work? Where will humans add value? What job skills will be most in-demand? Geoff Colvin answers these questions and more in this talk based on research for his New York Times bestselling book, Humans are Underrated. Forward-thinking employers say the critical skills they’ll need most to compete in the future are those that focus on social interaction: collaboration, storytelling, social sensitivity, brainstorming, creating and innovating with others, leading, and above all – empathy.
The need to transition to newly valuable skills is happening faster than organizations and most psyches can adapt. And for those companies balancing a workforce of people and machines, there are political and PR consequences. Geoff reveals what top organizations are doing to prepare for the future ofwork. The good news is that we humans already have what it takes -it’s up to us to make of it what we will.
Talent is Overrated – How great performers really got great
Scientific research on great performance shows that what most of us believe about hard work and raw talent is off-base. That means most of us will never perform as well as we could. Geoff Colvin, author of the groundbreaking international bestseller TalentIs Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, explains the findings and relates them to real life in real organizations.
He shows how most organizations value the wrong things -that passion, honesty, and learning are more valuable than hours, IQ, or ‘native ability.’ Geoff demonstrates that world-class performance comes from behaviors that every person and organization can adopt. Those who apply these principles gain a tremendous competitive advantage and Geoff cites relevant examples to prove it and launch an important conversation in your organization.
Where is the Economy headed?
Even before the new alignment of power in Washington, it was the question on everyone’s mind: where are the U.S. and global economies going? Now it’s even more urgent – and uncertain. The economic picture can change dramatically with a single tweet, and Geoff Colvin covers it in depth from his perch at Fortune. In opinion surveys, top CEOs and ordinary consumers say the same thing: there’s too much change, too fast; we can’t keep up.
We all remember a time when it was easier to anticipate where things might be headed, when the consequences of misjudgment were less severe. Now a meltdown of financial markets in China can ripple globally and take down a trillion dollars in assets in a single day – and such volatility is becoming more common. Geoff helps audiences make sense of the forces driving economic change – offering a glimpse of where each may take you and your business.
Panel Moderator, Discussion Leader, Emcee/Host
Geoff Colvin’s unique gift is his ability to brilliantly moderate panels, lead onstage interviews and host/emcee. He’s played these roles for more than three decades at Fortune conferences worldwide. Top companies and associations regularly utilize Geoff because he gets the most out of participants; he asks the right questions, listens intently to what’s being said on stage and responds to that keeping the discussion relevant and the energy high.
Geoff Colvin's 2022 speaking fees
- United States
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