Joerg Niessing
INSEAD Professor, Speaker, Author "B2B Digital Transformation", Consultant and Strategic Advisor
Joerg Niessing: Expert in Business Transformation, Digital Strategy, Brand Strategy and Customer-Centric Growth
Joerg Niessing is a globally recognized expert on customer-centric business transformation, sought after for his ability to bridge academic rigor with hands-on business impact. With deep expertise in digital strategy, branding, marketing, customer experience, and data analytics, Joerg helps organizations to unlock growth by building powerful brands that stand out in highly competitive markets. His cutting-edge research and advisory work are redefining how organizations approach innovation, digital transformation, and business reinvention—enabling them to create future-oriented business models, experiences and strategies.
A Senior Affiliate Professor at INSEAD and former Partner at Prophet—one of the world’s leading brand consultancies—Joerg has spent more than 25 years helping top executives from over 300 companies, including Google, L’Oréal, Roche, Ferrero, Walmart, Marriott, Diageo, Electrolux, and Samsung. He specializes in crafting future-proof strategies, building meaningful customer experiences and scaling brands globally—always grounded in robust data and insight.
During his time at Prophet, Joerg built and led the firm’s customer insights and analytics practice, helping organizations turn data into actionable strategies. In addition to his work with global enterprises, he actively supports startups in building impactful, purpose-driven businesses. He was the first investor and strategic advisor to Waterdrop, helping shape its brand and drive its expansion into 30+ markets. He also co-founded of vstrat.ai, an AI-powered strategy tool that enables companies to scale the use of proven strategy and branding frameworks, empowering every employee to think and act strategically.
At INSEAD, Joerg directs and teaches 30+ top-ranked executive programs each year, focused on business transformation, customer-centricity, branding, and data-driven strategy. His highly interactive and example-rich teaching style has earned him multiple awards, including the “Teaching Excellence Award” in executive education for nine consecutive years. In 2025, Joerg was named the winner of the international Outstanding Case Teacher Award by The Case Centre—a lifetime recognition for innovation and impact in business education.
As a keynote speaker, Joerg brings a rare mix of academic depth, real-world examples, business acumen, and engaging storytelling to every session. He speaks regularly at global conferences such as the Mobile World Congress, QSP Summit, and the Chief Marketer Institute Europe, as well as private leadership offsites and corporate events. His keynotes are designed to inspire bold thinking and are packed with insights, examples and practical tools that empower leaders to build brands that create lasting value, energize organizations and drive measurable business impact.
Having lived in six countries across Europe, the US, and Asia—and worked in over 40—Joerg brings a truly global perspective, blending European strategic depth with Silicon Valley dynamism.
What to Expect
Joerg’s sessions are fast-paced, insight-packed, and highly actionable—blending cutting-edge thinking with practical tools and a compelling storytelling approach. Whether engaging senior executives, entrepreneurs, or cross-functional teams, Joerg delivers a powerful mix of strategic frameworks, vivid case studies, and real-world applications grounded in data, innovation, and purpose.
Expect to dive deep into how organizations can drive customer-centric transformation and build powerful brands by harnessing the full potential of data, digital technologies, and AI. Joerg explores how leading companies are reinventing their business models, customer experiences, and internal cultures to stay competitive in an era of disruption and rising customer expectations.
Rather than treating transformation as a one-off initiative, Joerg challenges participants to embed customer obsession into the DNA of their organization—turning insight into action, and strategy into sustained impact. His sessions connect the dots between strategy, customer-centricity, data & technology, organisation change, and innovation, providing participants with a holistic playbook for transformation that sticks.
Because real change requires more than surface-level fixes—Joerg calls out the common pitfall of “putting a digital lipstick on a legacy pig.” His approach cuts through the noise to focus on what truly drives progress: deep, meaningful transformation that starts from within but focussing on creating customer value.
What You’ll Leave With
You’ll walk away with a refreshed mindset and a strategic playbook f or driving customer-centric transformation—equipping you to lead with clarity, confidence, and impact in a rapidly evolving digital world. Joerg challenges leaders to rethink the fundamentals: “If people want to use WhatsApp, don’t optimize the fax machine.” The point? Transformation is not about incremental tweaks—it’s about reimagining value from the customer’s point of view.
You’ll gain deep insight into how to harness data, technology, and AI to create relevant brands, value-driving customer experiences, foster innovation, and build future-ready business models. Key action points include turning customer insight into strategic direction, designing end-to-end experiences that drive engagement and growth, aligning cross-functional teams around the customer, and embedding agility and experimentation into your organization’s DNA.
You’ll learn how to connect strategy with execution—translating bold ideas into scalable, real-world impact across functions, markets, and touchpoints. Whether you’re leading a transformation, reimagining customer value, or unlocking new growth opportunities, you’ll leave equipped to act boldly, inspire change, and create organizations that are not only more digital—but deeply customer-first and innovation-driven.