Rishad Tobaccowala

Senior Advisor to the Publicis Groupe, Chairman of The Tobaccowala Foundation, and Author of “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in The Age of Data”

Rishad Tobaccowala is a Senior Advisor to the Publicis Groupe where he has spent his entire 37 career, most recently serving as the Chief Growth Officer and Chief Strategist of the Groupe. Tobaccowala was named by BusinessWeek as one of the top business leaders for his pioneering innovation and TIME magazine dubbed him one of five “Marketing Innovators. He is in the Ad Age Interactive Hall of Fame and has received a lifetime achievement silver medal award from the Chicago Ad Federation. Rishad is also the author of “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in The Age of Data” which helps people think, feel and see differently about how to grow their companies, their teams and themselves to remain relevant in transformational times. Rishad is also the Chairman of The Tobaccowala Foundation which helps 10,000 people in India gain better healthcare and education.

  • Rishad Tobaccowala Keynote Speaker Fee Fee range is for U.S. events, depending on location and organization type

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  • Languages Spoken

    English

  • Rishad Tobaccowala Keynote Speaker Fee Fee range is for U.S. events, depending on location and organization type

    Please Inquire

  • Languages Spoken

    English

Suggested Keynote Speaker Programs

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of The Past

Globalization. Demographic Shifts and Technology were changing the very landscape every business  was operating in. And now there is the economic, health and social crisis of Covid-19 and the scaling impact of Third Connected Age technologies of AI, Voice, 5G and ...

Globalization. Demographic Shifts and Technology were changing the very landscape every business  was operating in. And now there is the economic, health and social crisis of Covid-19 and the scaling impact of Third Connected Age technologies of AI, Voice, 5G and Cloud.

Rishad will distill the confusion into the key drivers every individual should focus on so they and their companies are prepared for the Great Re-invention. He will reveal how new scale is coming to replace old scale, why data is key but like electricity is not really a differentiator, how the rules of Brand building require an understanding of “God like” power and how to separate the signal from the noise. Anyone attending this will frame the future in completely new ways.

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Upgrading your Mental Operating System to Unleash Your Talent

We spend a lot of time upgrading our physical operating system by exercising and watching what we eat but do we spend enough time on exercising our minds so we can truly grow, adapt and remain relevant in a world of change and are we feeding the right side of our ...

We spend a lot of time upgrading our physical operating system by exercising and watching what we eat but do we spend enough time on exercising our minds so we can truly grow, adapt and remain relevant in a world of change and are we feeding the right side of our minds that unleash innovation?

Rishad will share a number of learnings and exercises including why there are much better ways to generate new thinking than off-sites to generate ideas and why its key to build a case for the exact opposite of what you believe. A plethora of tools and resources will be shared and discussed.

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Managing Change So It Sucks Less

Change sucks because it is difficult, it involves new learning, it means venturing into the unknown and making mistakes. But irrelevance is even worse. How do companies truly make change happen. Rishad will explain why Strategy, M&A and new ...

Change sucks because it is difficult, it involves new learning, it means venturing into the unknown and making mistakes. But irrelevance is even worse. How do companies truly make change happen.

Rishad will explain why Strategy, M&A and new Leadership often are never enough because the keys are communication, incentives and training. Why being able to call out a turd on the table is a critical part of a culture if change is to real. He will show folks how to make change stick and not be as short lived as a press release.

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Leading with Soul

We have a crisis of leadership everywhere. Politics. Business. Society. In part because leadership is accepting and adapting to reality versus making a science, fact and future free fantasy. Rishad will share the five key characteristics of great ...

We have a crisis of leadership everywhere. Politics. Business. Society. In part because leadership is accepting and adapting to reality versus making a science, fact and future free fantasy.

Rishad will share the five key characteristics of great leaders. Why every one has in them the components of being a good and a bad boss and how to ignite the good side and extinguish the bad. How to manage distributed workforces and why you should have more versus fewer meetings leaving people with energy, enthusiasm and belief.

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Prepare for the Next Frontier of Marketing & Creativity

Even before the Third Connected Age (AI, Voice/AR/VR, Cloud Computing, 5G), marketing and creativity has been transformed. Now as NFT’s (non-fungible tokens), meta-verse, dual realities (in person and digital are both in the real world) begin to scale, learn how to learn, ...

Even before the Third Connected Age (AI, Voice/AR/VR, Cloud Computing, 5G), marketing and creativity has been transformed. Now as NFT’s (non-fungible tokens), meta-verse, dual realities (in person and digital are both in the real world) begin to scale, learn how to learn, partner and create from someone who has been on the frontiers and now is investing and on the board of a number of next generation marketing firms.

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Turbo Charge Selling/Problem Solving Skills

We are all salespeople and problem solvers regardless of what our title says or what Industry we work in. We must sell our points of view, our recommendation, our companies and ourselves. The best salespeople understand and solve people’s problems and deliver them ...

We are all salespeople and problem solvers regardless of what our title says or what Industry we work in. We must sell our points of view, our recommendation, our companies and ourselves. The best salespeople understand and solve people’s problems and deliver them in simple understandable ways.

This workshop upgrades your skills by a) helping you better understand what the person on the other end needs, b) teaches you how to frame and solve problems, and c) architect presentations that have impact.

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Re-Thinking your Organization for The Future of Work

Even before the shock of Covid-19, work was being re-configured by the forces of demographic shifts, globalization and technology. Any company or team that believes it is possible to go back to the way things were in 2019 is already lost and solving ...

Even before the shock of Covid-19, work was being re-configured by the forces of demographic shifts, globalization and technology.

Any company or team that believes it is possible to go back to the way things were in 2019 is already lost and solving for the wrong challenges in a world of unbundled work.

Work will be done from many places including home, the museum (the old office HQ), third places (WeWork, Starbucks) and at Events / Experiential Gathering.  Many of us will plug and play across projects or gigs and learn how to work in combination with next generation automation.

How does one attract and retain talent? How does one manage culture and collaboration?

This workshop shares best thinking, suggests approaches and provides actionable next steps for leaders and companies to adapt and thrive in the new reality.

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Data/Privacy/Identity

Data, Privacy and Identity are key to the future of business and people. The three areas are interconnected but often mistakenly confused. This module shares thinking on a dozen ways one can extract meaning from math and insights from data. On how to think about ...

Data, Privacy and Identity are key to the future of business and people. The three areas are interconnected but often mistakenly confused. This module shares thinking on a dozen ways one can extract meaning from math and insights from data. On how to think about privacy matters and why identity is not one thing but multiple perspectives on a person.

Stop being confused or seduced by buzz word bingo about data like “data lakes”, “deterministic”, “probabilistic” and truly understand from a human and business perspective on how to lead and learn in this area.

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About Keynote Speaker Rishad Tobaccowala

Rishad Tobaccowala is an author, speaker, teacher, and advisor with four decades of experience specializing in helping people, organizations and teams re-invent themselves to remain relevant in changing times. He specializes in unleashing talent and turbo-charging productivity by delivering perspectives, points of view, provocations and plans of action but no PowerPoints!

Rishad’s best-selling book “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” was published globally by HarperCollins and focusses on helping people think, feel, and see differently about how to grow their companies, their teams and themselves in transformative times. The Economist Magazine called it perhaps the best recent book on stakeholder capitalism and Strategy Magazine named it among the five best business books and the marketing book of the year. Rishad’s weekly thought-letter, “The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past” is read by over 25,000 leaders every week across industries and around the world.

Rishad speaks on change, future trends and transforming work forces to a range of industries from platforms (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Snap, Tik-Tok), to technology ( Akamai, Juniper Networks) media ( NY Times, Conde Nast, Univision, Vice, NBCU), to blue chip firms ( Walmart, Procter and Gamble, H&R Block, Bayer, Pepsi, Colgate-Palmolive) to Financial Firms ( Bank of America, Fifth Third Bank, Georgia Bank) to Industry Associations (Blue Cross Blue Shield, Illinois Department of Tourism, US Olympics, Radio Advertising Bureau, Outdoor Advertising Association).

Rishad teaches several highly popular workshops (virtual and in-person) on eight different subjects (which are often combined and customized to audience) on subjects such as Change Management, Upgrading Your Mental Operating System, How to Lead with Soul, Frameworks for the Next Frontier of Marketing and Creativity and Re-Thinking Organizations for the Future of Work. Rishad is also a frequent guest lecturer at The University of Chicago, Northwestern University and NYU.

Rishad’s advisory clients include global firms such as Publicis Groupe and many executives at Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies, private equity organizations such as Growth Catalyst Partners, Venture Capital firms such as Abundant Ventures and Greycroft, and technology platforms such as Crisp, Firework, Quilt, Shift Paradigm, Dumbstruck, Work Reduce, Spores Networks.

Rishad spent nearly four decades at Publicis Groupe an 80,000-employee firm comprising companies like Epsilon, Sapient, Digitas, Leo Burnett, Saatchi and Saatchi, Starcom and Zenith dedicated to delivering marketing and business transformation. Before Rishad stopped being a full-time employee with Publicis Groupe (where he remains active as a Senior Advisor) he was Publicis Groupe’s Global Chief Strategist and Growth Officer and served on its Management Committee.

Rishad has also been the Chairman of Digitas and Razorfish, two of the largest marketing transformation agencies in the world with over 11000 employees.

Over his 40-year career Tobaccowala has worked across almost every area of marketing and strategy including brand advertising, media, database, direct and interactive marketing. As a pioneer in digital marketing, Tobaccowala helped create one of the first interactive groups and digital agencies 25 years ago and has helped launch a series of initiatives over the years from groups focused on gaming, social, mobile and search engine marketing. Starcom IP, Play, Giant Step, SMG Search and Denuo are some of the brands Tobaccowala helped incubate.

Tobaccowala was named by BusinessWeek as one of the top business leaders for his pioneering innovation and TIME magazine dubbed him one of five “Marketing Innovators. He is the Ad Age Interactive Hall of Fame and has received a lifetime achievement silver medal award from the Chicago Ad Federation and an Inspire Award for motivating and building talent from the Advertising Education Foundation and the Association of National Advertisers.

Rishad is also is chairman of The Tobaccowala Foundation, which helps over 10,000 people gain better access to health and education in India.

Tobaccowala holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Bombay and an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago with which he remains closely involved.

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