Sam Walker

Award-winning Author and Editor

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

    $20,001 - $30,000

  • Languages Spoken

    English

  • Travels From

    New York, USA

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

    $20,001 - $30,000

  • Languages Spoken

    English

  • Travels From

    New York, USA

Suggested Keynote Speaker Programs

Are Great Leaders Made or Born?

Great leadership isn’t for everyone, but the number of people who can develop these skills is far larger than we imagine. Most of us believe that leaders are rare specimens who have surpassing talent and charisma. We think their leadership qualities should be obvious. ...

Great leadership isn’t for everyone, but the number of people who can develop these skills is far larger than we imagine. Most of us believe that leaders are rare specimens who have surpassing talent and charisma. We think their leadership qualities should be obvious. But the greatest teams in the history of sports had leaders who were not obvious, and were even highly unlikely. The seven key traits they had in common were not God-given talents that outshone all others, but functions of their behavior. Walker outlines these traits, and the science behind them, in this thought-provoking presentation.

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The Power of Middle Management in a World Obsessed with Superstars

In sports, Silicon Valley, and other businesses where companies compete for top talent, there’s a growing tendency to adopt “flat structures” where the top managers and top talent work closely together. The trouble with this model is that it squeezes out the ...

In sports, Silicon Valley, and other businesses where companies compete for top talent, there’s a growing tendency to adopt “flat structures” where the top managers and top talent work closely together. The trouble with this model is that it squeezes out the crucial role of the middle manager, who serves as an intermediary. Walker’s research into the greatest sports teams in history shows that in all cases, it was the team captain —a middle manager—who was the primary force in helping the team achieve and maintain its historic greatness. This talk will describe the ways organizations can identify these valuable leaders and put them in positions to succeed.

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About Keynote Speaker Sam Walker

About Speaker Sam Walker…

An expert at untangling the metrics of what makes teams great, Sam Walker helps leaders thrive by sharing the key traits the best captains share. A former reporter, columnist, and sports editor, Walker also founded the Wall Street Journal’s award-winning daily sports section and acted as the deputy editor for enterprise, the unit that oversees the paper’s page-one features and investigative journalism projects. He currently writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal on leadership, inspired by his book The Captain Class.

After painstakingly profiling thousands of teams in his quest to find the world’s greatest, Walker gained a fascinating insight: the only thing the 16 greatest teams in sports history had in common was the presence of the same kind of captain. These captains of the best teams shared the same seven key traits, which are not the ones you would expect. A vivid storyteller, Walker has amassed dozens of first-hand accounts of how these character traits come into play on and off the field. Fun, fast, and informative, Walker presents a counterintuitive view of leadership that applies to a wide spectrum of competitive disciplines, especially business.

In addition to The Captain Class, Walker is author of the bestselling Fantasyland, the story of his quest to win America’s top fantasy baseball league (he’s a two-time champion). In addition to the Wall Street Journal, he has been featured on ESPNC-SpanNPR, and in Esquire. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Walker attended the University of Michigan and lives in New York with his wife and two children.

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