Russell Beck
- Largest physical conference delivered – 750 people. Smallest – 15.
- Largest virtual talk delivered – over 10,000.
- Lead engineering projects in over 25 countries – with responsibility for over USD500m.
- Managed teams that delivered over 1% of all UK permanent recruitment.
- Managing Director of an GBP120m turnover outsourcing business.
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Russell Beck's 2025 biography
Meet Russell Beck
Russell is one of the leading experts on the world of work and how businesses and individuals can make themselves future-ready. An acknowledged thought leader, he is a popular keynote speaker, consultant and best-selling author whose views are regularly sought by business, education, the government and media.
Today’s world is more complex and uncertain than ever before. The pace of change is increasing and unrelenting. Leaders face unprecedented challenges seeking to maintain strategic focus amidst a multitude of distractions including talent acquisition and retention; AI technology and future skills; productivity; management; hybrid work environments; sustainability; prioritisation and focus… The list seems endless, but leaders must navigate this maze and prepare for a future that is both uncertain, but one that is certain to happen.
Russell Beck is your trusted navigator in this ever-evolving landscape. A best-selling author, he wrote The World of Work to 2030, which won the Leadership Book of the Year 2024 award from the UK’s Institute of Leadership and was recognized by The Financial Times as a must-read business book. A highly successful business leader having run engineering projects in over 25 countries, been European Head of Talent for Yahoo!, MD of a £120m turnover consulting business and global head of consulting he brings a rich tapestry of experience spanning continents and industries. Offering practical advice, challenge and solutions Russell helps leaders future-proof their organisations and unlock the full potential of their people. Through inspiring keynotes, interactive workshops and bespoke consultancy services, Russell connects the dots, empowering leaders to take tangible action and drive transformative change.
Russell is trusted by companies including: Crimestoppers, Chauvet, Learning Waves Skillnet, the NHS, TTP, Top Employer’s Institute, The Institute of Leadership, Cambridge Judge School of Management and Vodafone.
Articles and podcasts
Jan 2025
Russell Beck's 2025 talks & topics
Unlocking the Future: Navigating the changing uncertainties to future-proof your business and your career
The world is changing at an ever-faster rate. Our businesses face unprecedented hazards – competitors seemingly arrive from nowhere overnight challenging and upending our markets, globalization, technology, talent shortages, changing customer choices and politics all threaten us yet also offer tantalising opportunities. Personally, increased life expectancy means we need to consider a 50- or 60-year career, yet AI and robots are destroying the very jobs we need to make a living.
It is all up in the air, it is all happening at once and it is happening to all of us. From any perspective – personal or corporate – shouldn’t we seek to understand what is happening and prepare ourselves for what is coming next?
Based on the best-selling book and backed up with extensive research and real-world examples, this session puts this all into context. It will show how the world is changing and through a series of lenses – business, people, future skills, sustainability and our roles – the practical steps we can all take to future proof our businesses and our careers.
What Russell will give you:
- A practical understanding of the megatrends playing out in the world today and their threats and opportunities
- Practical steps that you can take to future proof your business viewed in the context of:
- Business strategy, focus and size; how things will get done; hybrid working and the office
- People strategy and the reality of talent and its availability going forward
- Future skills, technology and how to hire them
- Sustainability from the internal context of innovation and the external context of the climate
- How to future proof your career
Revolutionising attraction and retention: A blueprint for talent sustainability
30 months into the cost-of-living crisis and UK job vacancies remain 15% higher than pre-pandemic levels. In America there are two unemployed people for every three open vacancies. It is without doubt a seller’s market and it is going to stay this way. By 2030 it is estimated that 1 in 10 jobs could remain permanently unfilled. If your business is in any way reliant on people to get things done, this is an existential threat.
Talent strategies need a rethink. The pandemic fundamentally changed people’s view of work and life forcing everyone to consider what is “worth it.” Compensation is one of the 6 C’s © and is of course part of the solution, but humans crave more than a financial transaction they crave interaction or Career, Cause, Community, Culture and a Company that understands them. This session will give you practical tips on how you can create a sustainable, future-proofed talent strategy where people want to stay and do their best work every day.
What Russell will give you:
- Insight into the reality of the employment market and why it will remain a sellers’ market for years to come
- An overview of our 6C © model that enables talent strategies to be future ready
- Practical and tangible tips on how to implement each step
Fostering Belonging: Cultivating Inclusive Environments to Harness the True Power of Diversity
There can be no argument about whether diversity delivers business benefit. Indeed, as McKinsey has stated, ‘a lack of diversity is a penalty to business.’ We have, however, been looking through the kaleidoscope from the wrong end. Our root problem however, is not diversity, it is belonging, and it is only by creating a sense of belonging for all of our employees, where each feels safe to be themselves without fear of judgement or repercussion, that we can then create inclusion and thus unlock the benefits of a diverse workforce.
Belonging is really important; according to McKinsey, 51% of employees have left a business because they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work. This session will provide you with the understanding and tools as to why belonging is so critical.
What Russell will give you:
- A demonstration of how belonging can unlock the benefits of diversity and inclusion
- The neuroscience behind connections
- A business case on the benefits of creating belonging
- An action plan on how you can embed belonging across the employee life cycle.
Unlocking Meaningful Work: Leveraging Purpose-Led Leadership to Drive Productivity, Innovation, and Wellbeing
Dostoyevsky noted that it is never the hardness of a task that destroys a human, it is far, far easier – just make the task futile “to the point of absurdity.” Dostoyevsky though was just building on something the gods had known for aeons. Since Zeus condemned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless, unending futility we have known that doing something we know to be pointless is a punishment worse than death.
Hopefully employees can tell you what they do. Hopefully they can tell you how they will do it, but can they tell you why they do it? 40% of workers across Europe believe their job makes no meaningful contribution to society whatsoever and they know it. In a world where there is always someone willing to pay more than us, “meaning is the new money” and those who find meaning in their work are more productive, healthier, have greater retention and are more innovative.
What Russell will give you:
- An overview of why humans crave meaning and the benefit to business of providing meaningful work
- Considerations on why creating meaning is so hard
- A business case on the benefits of creating meaning and purpose
- Practical steps you can take to help everyone find their golden thread at work and embed meaning into the workplace