Andrew Winston

Profit, Innovation, and the Drive to Net Positive
How courageous companies thrive by solving the world's problems

Our economy and society are healing from the pandemic, but extreme challenges remain, such as climate change and inequality. Business has the vast opportunity – along with the tools and skills – to profit from solving the world’s problems, not creating them. Based on his new book Net Positive – co-authored with legendary CEO Paul Polman – this inspiring talk from renowned strategist Andrew Winston will help you navigate the seismic changes sweeping through business. Net Positive explodes 50 years of corporate dogma about the purpose of business and how it thrives. With bold vision and compelling stories, Winston sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world desperately needs.
His talk will explore surprising data about our world and look at stories of leading companies such as: Microsoft and Google pushing the boundaries on moving to clean energy; Salesforce and Tesco raising the level of expectations on suppliers; the consumer goods industry experimenting with new models for delivering products; Unilever working with peers, NGOs, communities, and governments to improve health and hygiene globally and reduce deforestation; and more.

Alternate title and topic description
GigaTrends and the Big Pivot: Doing Business in a Hotter, Scarcer, More Open & Connected World
Global megatrends -- such as climate change, the rise of the clean economy, fast-moving technology shifts, and generational shifts in values as Millennials and Gen Z come of age -- are dramatically changing how we live and do business. Investors, consumers, and employees are all demanding that companies have a clear purpose and help people and the planet thrive. Andrew's talk will give executives an overview of this new landscape for business and provide a vision for how to profit in a volatile world.

Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take

Runaway climate change and rampant inequality are ravaging the world and costing a fortune. Who will help lead us to a better future? Business.

These massive dual challenges—and other profound shifts, such as pandemics, resource pressures, and shrinking biodiversity—threaten our very existence. Other megatrends, such as the push for a clean economy and the unprecedented focus on diversity and inclusion, offer exciting new opportunities to heal the world, and prosper by doing so. Government cannot do this alone. Business must step up.

In this seminal book, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and sustainable business guru Andrew Winston explode fifty years of corporate dogma. They reveal, for the first time, key lessons from Unilever and other pioneering companies around the world about how you can profit by fixing the world's problems instead of creating them. To thrive today and tomorrow, they argue, companies must become "net positive"—giving more to the world than they take. A net positive company:

• Improves the lives of everyone it touches, from customers and suppliers to employees and communities, greatly increasing long-term shareholder returns in the process.
• Takes ownership of all the social and environmental impacts its business model creates. This in turn provides opportunities for innovation, savings, and building a more humane, connected, and purpose-driven culture.
• Partners with competitors, civil society, and governments to drive transformative change that no single group or enterprise could deliver alone.
• This is no utopian fantasy. Courageous leaders are already making it real—and the stakes couldn't be higher. With bold vision and compelling stories, Net Positive sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.

The Big Pivot: Innovation and Value Creation in a Hotter, Scarcer, More Open World
(alternate titles/subtitles possible such as…
Doing Business in an Unpredictable, Expensive, Digital and Connected World)

Andrew Winston, a globally recognized speaker and business strategy expert, lays out a new vision for how to succeed in a volatile world. Rising pressures on business create enormous risks, but offer unprecedented opportunities as multi-trillion-dollar markets are in play. The race for the new, clean economy is on, and the winners profit mightily. In a unique and entertaining way, Winston’s talk:

• - Lays out the critical mega-trends that are quickly redefining “business as usual” such as global demographic changes, intense resource constraints, a changing climate and extreme weather, new expectations from Millennials and Gen Z about how a business should operate, and radical transparency driven by new technologies that connect us all;
• - Offers many “a-ha” and “wow” moments backed by surprising data about our world;
• - Describes the simple but profound mindset shift – the Big Pivot – that companies must make to go beyond merely coping and actually navigate and solve the world’s toughest challenges;
• - Provides crucial tactics and strategies for executives and managers to profit from this new, volatile reality;
• - Inspires audiences to think about the true purpose of their business and their jobs, to ask deeply heretical and innovative questions, and to connect with their customers in new ways.

With concrete advice and stories from the companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, Dow, Ford, GE, Nike, Unilever, and Wal-Mart, The Big Pivot provides a blueprint for creating more resilient, flexible businesses that profit from building a healthier, more sustainable, more prosperous world.

Climate Change and Business

What we know, the risks, the opportunities, and what the world is doing. An entertaining and enlightening overview, without too much jargon, of the phenomenon of climate change, including: the basic science and why the consensus on human-driven climate change is so strong, the level of risk from inaction, the costs to society thus far and going forward, the business case for action, and how big companies are managing climate risk and opportunity for profit.

Energy Strategy for the C-Suite

An overview of the world’s largest industry and how business leaders can shift their thinking from energy as a cost center to a strategic asset, including exploring how different regions of the world use energy, the fundamental tensions between energy use and climate change, the rapidly shifting economics of clean energy, and the deep interconnections between energy, food, and water.

Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage

Andrew will explore the environmental pressures and powerful stakeholders driving companies to go green. Winston demonstrates how leading companies create business value in 4 fundamental ways: lowering costs, reducing risk, increasing revenues, and enhancing brand value (such as employee and customer loyalty).