Speech Topics
Photo credit: John Werner
Dorie Clark has lectured everywhere from Harvard Business School to the World Bank to Google HQ. She speaks on personal branding, professional reinvention, leadership, networking, and social media.
Known for her engaging and insightful talks, Dorie’s audiences learn how to become recognized for the leaders they are and leave the room feeling empowered to take action and make an impact.
You can download Dorie’s speaker info sheet with information on fees and logistics.
Below are sample topics; please feel free to contact us if you’d like to schedule a talk or discuss a customized presentation.
You can also view videos of her talks, and see a list of her upcoming and past speaking engagements.
Dorie Clark’s Speaker Reel
Cultivating Mental Agility in a Complex World
Now more than ever, we have to be ready to adapt to rapid change – and, even better, predict it. In this interactive session, Duke University executive education professor and Harvard Business Review author Dorie Clark will share strategies to help you nimbly adjust when the situation changes, learn from the past, and get smarter about planning for the future.
You will learn how to:
• Create ‘smart networks’ that enable you to predict changes ahead of others
• Analyze bad outcomes – before they happen, so you can prevent them
• Seize opportunity by leveraging your unique advantages
•Harness the forces that create serendipity
Building Your Brand as a Leader
Being recognized as a compelling leader can dramatically accelerate your professional success. Building on her book Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future (Harvard Business Review Press), Dorie Clark – a Duke University Fuqua School of Business professor, former presidential campaign spokesperson, and HBR contributor – will show you how to cultivate a powerful professional reputation that enables you to persuade others and obtain buy-in more easily for your best ideas.
You will learn how to:
• Communicate your brand effectively to others
• Establish and cultivate your reputation over time
• Increase your influence within and outside your organization
• Ensure others understand your true leadership abilities
Reinventing You
Are you where you want to be professionally? To succeed in today’s competitive job market and build the career you want, you’ll need to reinvent yourself, and ensure that others recognize your unique skills and abilities. In this thought-provoking talk, Dorie Clark—author of the Harvard Business Review Press book Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future—will discuss concrete strategies to become a stronger leader through professional reinvention.
You will learn how to:
• Discover how you’re currently perceived
• Identify the essence of your brand
• Leverage your unique strengths
• Powerfully demonstrate the contribution only you can make
Stand Out: How to Develop Breakthrough Ideas
To succeed in today’s competitive business environment, it’s essential to keep raising the bar. But how can you best encourage and cultivate innovative ideas? In this talk based on her book Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, Dorie Clark – an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a frequent Harvard Business Review contributor – explains how to develop breakthrough ideas.
You will learn how to:
• Identify and develop ideas that will make a competitive difference for your company
• Gain support for those ideas internally and externally, so they can make a broader impact
• Ensure both you and your company are viewed as cutting-edge leaders in your field
How to Build a Following Around Your Ideas
Too many people believe that if they keep their heads down and work hard, they will be lauded as experts on the merits of their work. But that’s simply not true anymore. To advance your business or your cause, you have to inspire others to listen and take action. In this talk based on her book Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, Dorie Clark explains how to build a following around your ideas.
You will learn how to:
• Break through the noise and communicate in a way that makes others take notice
• Create a community that helps your idea spread
• Leverage social networks – online and off – to gain momentum
• Ensure your ideas receive the attention they deserve and make an impact
Stand Out Networking
We all know networking is critical to our professional success. But how, specifically, do you develop a powerful network while being truly authentic? In this talk, Harvard Business Review Press author Dorie Clark guides you through the process. We’ll cover online and real world networking opportunities, how to cultivate mentors, and how to network in a way that feels comfortable and genuine for you.
You will learn how to:
• Make yourself an indispensable connector
• Identify overlooked or unconventional mentors who can help you immeasurably
• Inspire others to want to seek you out
• Develop online content that makes your reach truly global
How to Think Entrepreneurially Inside Your Company
In this age of disruption, thinking entrepreneurially isn’t just for startups. Increasingly, the most successful companies and professionals recognize the importance of “intrapreneurship.” Based on her book Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press), Duke University adjunct professor Dorie Clark shares research-based strategies for how to harness your full creative potential, as well as create an organizational culture that helps your colleagues and employees embrace an entrepreneurial mindset.
You will learn how to:
• Reframe existing problems in order to get breakthrough results
• Test new ideas in strategic and low-risk ways
• Learn from – and speak openly about – failure
• Marshal support for new ideas inside your organization