Mike Walsh
CEO of Tomorrow & Futurist Leader – Mike Walsh heads Tomorrow, a global consultancy specializing in designing companies for the 21st century. Expert on AI & Digital Transformation – With two decades of experience, he advises top organizations on disruptive innovation, machine intelligence, and business reinvention. Bestselling Author & Thought Leader – Mike has written three bestselling books on the future of business, technology, and leadership. Bridging Tech & Leadership – A global nomad with a diverse background, he translates complex AI advancements into practical strategies for executives navigating digital transformation.
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Mike Walsh's 2025 biography
Who is Mike Walsh?
Mike Walsh is a futurist for leaders, internationally renown for his visionary and pragmatic insights on how organizations can leverage AI for reinvention. A regular columnist for the Harvard Business Review, a strategic advisor to Fortune 50 corporations, and a global nomad – he is the author of three bestselling books, most recently: ‘The Algorithmic Leader: How to be smart when machines are smarter than you’. He has a rare talent for connecting emerging technologies, cultural shifts, and commercial strategies — crafting insights that bridge the present to the future with clarity, relevance, and a compelling touch of wit.
What makes Mike different from other futurists?
At the heart of Mike Walsh’s work is a singular focus on redefining leadership for the AI age. Unlike other futurists who concentrate on predicting technological advances or broad societal trends, Walsh zeroes in on how leaders must fundamentally reimagine their role in a world where machines are increasingly capable of making complex decisions. His key insight is that traditional leadership approaches, built for an analog era of predictable business cycles and hierarchical organizations, are no longer sufficient. Instead, leaders must develop new capabilities to harness data and AI while maintaining their essential human judgment and ethical principles.
Walsh believes that the real challenge isn’t just understanding the technology itself, but rather how leaders can adapt their decision-making, develop new mental models, and reshape their organizations to effectively combine human and machine intelligence. His emphasis on the human dimension of technological change makes his insights particularly valuable for business leaders navigating digital transformation.
On a personal note, Mike’s ethnic background is as diverse as his experiences. Born in Australia to parents of mixed Asian and European heritage, he has lived, worked, and traveled across many countries, embracing a truly global perspective.
Mike’s writing, research and insights
A prolific writer and sought-after commentator, Mike’s insights have been featured in leading global publications such as Inc. Magazine, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. As a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, he tackles cutting-edge leadership themes ranging from data-driven decision-making and agile organizations to algorithmic management and AI ethics. Through his popular podcast Between Worlds, Mike engages with bold thinkers, innovators, and disruptors from across industries. He also produces The Future is Elsewhere, a YouTube series offering fresh perspectives from dynamic locations like Seoul, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Istanbul, bringing global trends and future forward ideas to life.
Mike is an accomplished author with three published books and a fourth on the way, focused on the future of AI Agents, set to release in early 2026. His most recent work, The Algorithmic Leader, provides an optimistic and practical roadmap for harnessing AI, automation, and algorithms to transform leadership and reshape organizations. The book has achieved global success, with translations available in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Polish, and Russian. In his 2014 release, The Dictionary of Dangerous Ideas, Mike foresaw groundbreaking innovations such as micro satellite networks, cryptocurrencies, remote work, life extension technologies, self-driving cars, drones, digital biology, digital activism, and the commercialization of space. His debut book, Futuretainment, published by Phaidon in 2009, earned the prestigious Art Director’s Club design award in New York. It accurately predicted the impact of smartphones on media and marketing, as well as the rise of social media, digital influencers, streaming platforms, and the emergence of the Metaverse.
Mike Walsh's 2025 talks & topics
AI Agents: Unleashing the Digital Workforce That Will Change Our Organizations Forever
As AI evolves from simple automation to autonomous decision-making, we stand on the brink of the most profound organizational transformation since the Industrial Revolution. This shift, driven by the emergence of AI agents capable of independent thought, decision-making, and action, will redefine everything from personal interactions to the very fabric of how businesses operate. AI Agents are not just the next step in digital transformation; they will also have significant economic and societal impacts. The question is no longer if AI will transform organizations but how quickly leaders can prepare to harness its full potential.
In this provocative keynote, Mike Walsh draws on cutting-edge research and real-world case studies to illustrate a future where companies reconfigure themselves as networks of billions of AI agents capable of tackling problems at a speed and scale unimaginable today. Walsh will present a compelling vision for how leaders can reimagine their operating models, governance frameworks, and workforce strategies to unlock unprecedented levels of agility and performance. Attendees will leave with actionable insights and a roadmap for integrating AI agents into their organizations, empowering them to thrive in an age of unparalleled innovation and disruption.
The AI-Powered Decade Ahead
AI should change what we do, not just how we do it. Over the next decade, we have a unique opportunity to fundamentally reimagine customer experiences, redesign how organizations work, and rethink how to solve problems more effectively. This is a defining moment for leaders, and our biggest risk is not machines taking over, but rather leaders lacking ambition when it comes to the future. Many are already focused on deploying new tools and applications, rather than embracing a more expansive vision for what might be possible.
Futurist Mike Walsh offers a compelling roadmap to 2035, exploring how AI, algorithms and automation will fuel a Fifth Industrial Revolution. Technology is only part of the story; real transformation requires a new cultural operating system. The next decade will not simply be about smarter workplaces or more efficient industries. It will be a decade of reinvention, where the foundations of the modern world are reengineered through next-generation AI infrastructure and new ways of getting things done.
The Future Favors The Bold
In a world reshaped by technological breakthroughs, shifting customer behaviors, geopolitical tensions, and the rise of machine intelligence, success belongs to those who dare to adapt, experiment, and learn at scale. Incremental improvements won’t cut it. Progress demands radical reinvention—bold ideas that challenge convention, create new markets, and combine technologies in unexpected ways.
Transformation is not a checklist; it’s a journey paved by courageous decisions. It could mean championing a provocative idea, breaking a long-held rule, or hiring someone who challenges deeply held assumptions. The future isn’t an upgrade of the familiar—it’s an entirely new frontier. In an age of uncertainty, only bold leaders and even bolder teams will shape what comes next.
New Rules For A New World
COVID-19 is not only changing our way of life, it will hasten the arrival of a radical new future of work. While for many of us working from home has been a new and unexpected challenge – that is just the start of a much bigger transformation set to reshape the nature of business itself. In order to survive, every organization will have to virtualize.
Whether it be serving customers through digital channels or leveraging AI, algorithms and automation to ensure business continuity – we are likely to experience in the next twelve months, a decade’s worth of change. Not every business will make it, but those that do will never be the same again. And for leaders, now more than ever, is a time to upgrade their capabilities, embrace new technologies, and reimagine what they do.
Mike Walsh’s inspiring new keynote presentation will offer audiences an insight into the organizations and leaders that are successfully navigating this period of change, and how to create a playbook for their own transformation. Becoming future-proof is more than just about getting through the current crisis – it is about being ready for the new world that awaits us on the other side.
The Algorithmic Leader
We live in an age of wonder – cars that drive themselves, platforms that anticipate our needs, and robots capable of everything from advanced manufacturing to complex surgery. Automation, algorithms and AI are transforming not only business, but every facet of daily life. While many fear that robots will take their jobs, the rise of machine intelligence begs a more important question: what is the true potential of human intelligence in the 21st century?
In this inspiring keynote, Mike Walsh, futurist and author of “The Algorithmic Leader, “The Dictionary Of Dangerous Ideas” and “Futuretainment” will present a vivid portrait of a brave new world orchestrated by machines that think, and how tomorrow’s leaders can upgrade their capabilities to survive and thrive in an age of accelerating technology.
Audiences will walk away with an insight into the companies, technologies and global forces shaping the age of machine intelligence, as well as a set of tailored next actions on how to redesign their organizations, reimagine their roles and reinvent the way they make decisions.
Designing Your Business for the 21st Century
‘Most companies are simply not designed to survive. They become successful on the basis of one big idea or breakthrough product,’ says CEO MikeWalsh of Tomorrow, a global consultancy that helps design 21st century businesses. ‘The companies that will thrive in the near future are the ones not only embracing change but breaking the rules.’
Companies built to survive the future are no accident. They are a result of deliberate business design decisions smart leaders are making today. In his ongoing research on the world’s most innovative companies, Mike has organized these decisions into seven strategic priorities – that he will explore with audiences as a roadmap for their own reinvention.
In this keynote, Walsh will outline the mega-trends shaping the future of business and consumer behaviour, and the lessons learned from successful Fortune 500 companies on leveraging disruptive innovation, adopting a data-driven mindset and leading change through digital transformation.