Jeremy Blain

Why organisations work with Jeremy Blain

• He has published the operating detail behind distributed leadership, including a five-point organisational blueprint and a 90-day implementation roadmap, so the conversation moves past intent into execution.
• His OpenHR framework, co-authored with Dr. Rochelle Haynes, gives HR and people leaders a working model for designing a workforce that blends employees, contractors, and open talent without losing coherence.
• Twenty-five years operating as a CEO and board officer across the UK and Asia, including seven years running an international consultancy from Singapore, mean the boardroom register is native, not learned.
• Recognition from credible third parties, Gold at the 2024 Global Book Awards for Unleash the Inner CEO and ACQ5 International Gamechanger of the Year 2023, confirms the work has been independently judged on substance.
• He brings frameworks that travel beyond the keynote, with diagnostic tools and culture-building activities organisations can take into their own leadership development programmes.

Biography highlights

• Founder and CEO, Performance Works International, advising boards and executive teams on leadership and digital transformation.
• Author of The Inner CEO and the second edition Unleash the Inner CEO, both award-winning titles on distributed leadership.
• Co-author with Dr. Rochelle Haynes of OpenHR: The Human Capital Framework for the Blended Workforce.
• Fellow of the Institute of Directors, London since 2003; senior board advisor to WDHB and co-founder of the Transformational Leadership Acceleration Institute.
• Named International Gamechanger of the Year by ACQ5 in 2023.
• Featured in Forbes, The Times of London, CEO Today, Dialogue by Duke CE, and Business Matters; host of the Rethink Leadership podcast.

Biography

Distributed leadership has been talked about for two decades. What has been missing is a working model that boards and operating committees can actually run. Jeremy Blain has spent his career building that model, first as a CEO and board officer in the UK and Asia, and now as the founder of Performance Works International.

The argument is set out in The Inner CEO and its updated second edition, Unleash the Inner CEO, which won Gold in the Business Leadership category at the 2024 Global Book Awards. The book offers a five-point blueprint for the conditions, structures, and processes that make distributed leadership operational, plus a 90-day roadmap for managers and individual contributors. It is closer to an implementation manual than a thesis.

A second strand of the work, OpenHR, co-authored with Dr. Rochelle Haynes, addresses what happens when the workforce itself is no longer a single category. As organisations blend employees, contractors, freelancers, and open talent, traditional human capital systems strain. OpenHR offers a framework, glossary, and templates for designing people strategy across that mix.

The credibility behind the frameworks is operational. Seven years running an international consultancy from Singapore. Twenty-five years in corporate learning and human capital. Senior board roles at WDHB and the Intercontinental School of Economics and Applied Sciences. ACQ5 named him International Gamechanger of the Year in 2023, and his commentary appears in Forbes, The Times of London, and Dialogue by Duke CE. Boards work with him because the prescriptions come with the receipts.

Key speaking topics

• Distributed leadership as an operating model
• Digital and AI transformation for boards and executive teams
• Human capital strategy for the blended workforce
• Empowerment and accountability at scale
• Leadership development across multinational and multi-generational teams
• Culture and capability for hybrid, AI-enabled organisations

Ideal for

• CEOs, COOs, and executive committees rewiring decision rights and accountability across the organisation
• CHROs and chief people officers designing for a workforce that combines full-time, contract, and open talent
• Boards reviewing the leadership and culture preconditions for digital and AI transformation
• Transformation, change, and leadership development leads building scalable programmes across regions

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of where authority and accountability are misaligned in their own organisation
• A practical reference model for distributing leadership without losing strategic coherence
• A framework for designing human capital strategy across employees, contractors, and open talent
• Specific diagnostic questions to take into the next executive committee or board agenda
• Language for confronting the gap between stated leadership values and observed leadership behaviour