Speaking Topics

High Performance Leadership

How do you unleash peoples’ energy, creativity and commitment whilst at the same time being rigorous about managing to stretching and at times breakthrough performance goals? A challenge that I took on at Firstdirect, Mercury and Egg and I learned a lot! Lessons I now apply to every business I work with from corporate giants to small business owners and everything in between.

“Mike completely changed the atmosphere of the room – he was inspiring and the round of applause at the end of his talk was heartfelt. We can all learn from him”

- Monica Gibbs, BT Wholesale

“I wanted to thank you on behalf of myself and the whole team for the very stimulating and inspirational presentation, and conversation over dinner last Thursday evening”

- Paul Wilgloss, M and S

Customer Engagement 2.0

Customer is king is a mantra that has served many businesses well including Firstdirect and Egg but the rules of customer insight and engagement are changing rapidly and we need to change our approach as social media takes centre stage.

“Many thanks to you for your valuable input to us and for inspiring our team”

- Christina King, Generali

“You judged the audience perfectly and gave them exactly what they’d come for.

- Ed Hardy, Bacon Club

On the leading edge

From Gates to Zuckerberg in 30 extraordinary years –a look at what technologies made a real difference to business in the last 30 years , who were the winners and how they won. I got to know many of the players as Firstdirect, Mercury and Egg were in the middle of it all and Garlik is very much still in the mix. Looking forward, what technologies are going to be decisive in the next 10 years and what lessons can we draw from the past about their effect on our business and how to make sure we are a winner.

“You managed very easily to bridge the age range from my grads to the more cynical and gnarled consultants with consummate ease and keeping them enthralled all the way. You gave us an excellent insight into what the future of technology and at the same time threaded in the implications on Thomsons throughout.”

-Michael Whitfield , CEO Thomsons

“Mike was fantastic. I loved the theme that he kept from the beginning right though to the end about change and doing things differently”

-Dionne Aiken, Telehouse

Implementing Innovation

How organisations can create an environment rich in new ideas and successful innovations despite financial, organisational and IT barriers. I take a look at this from two perspectives. Firstly ,from that of someone given responsibility to create an innovation initiative in a large organisation where I draw on my experience of Chairman of the Innovation Board at RBS (2005-2009) and work I did at the Sloan Business School, MIT (1996-2008). Secondly, I look at the issue from the perspective of a CEO who wants his or her organisation to be more innovative or keep it innovative as it grows – drawing on my experiences at Mercury and Egg.

“Mike has led many seminars at MIT and his descriptions of where breakthrough innovations come from are brilliant.”

-Henry Birdseye Weil, MIT Sloan School

“I just want to say thank you for a fantastic session yesterday. The O2 guys found it very, very inspiring and are having a Mike Harris feedback slot at their mega work shop today.”

-Nick Cross, The Foundation