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Martin Gutmann is a globally sought-after keynote speaker who brings fresh and timely insight into how leaders can understand and navigate today’s uncertain world.
Combining history, sociology and organisational psychology, he delivers engaging, story-driven talks that challenge conventional thinking and provide practical takeaways for modern leadership. His ability to connect lessons from the past with today’s realities helps audiences rethink decision-making, strategy and what effective leadership really looks like in times of rapid change.
A Professor at the Lucerne School of Business and Senior Lecturer at ETH Zurich, Martin’s thought leadership has reached more than 60 million people through publications including The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company and Inc., alongside appearances on leading management podcasts. His TED Talk, Are We Celebrating the Wrong Leaders?, has been viewed over two million times and continues to spark global conversation.
Martin is also the best-selling author of The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership, a book praised for challenging traditional assumptions about what it takes to lead and align people around a shared purpose.
Born in Sweden, Martin has lived and worked across Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, bringing a truly global perspective to his work. He holds a PhD in History from Syracuse University, an Executive MBA from IE Business School, and has completed higher education teaching training at Harvard University and ETH Zurich.
On stage, Martin is insightful, thought-provoking and highly relevant, equipping leaders with a fresh lens on leadership and the tools to navigate complexity with greater clarity and confidence.
This isn’t a talk about AI strategy. It’s a talk about what it will take to lead through one of the most profound revolutions in modern business. Combining sharp historical insight, witty anecdotes, state-of-the-field research, and actionable foresight, Martin delivers a powerful new lens for understanding AI, not as a technical challenge, but as a leadership imperative. Attendees will gain insights into the five concrete tensions they need to master to lead well in the age of AI: trust, productivity, meaning, clarity, and power.
In his keynote, Martin examines the early pioneers of aviation and the 1927 race to fly across the Atlantic, drawing parallels to contemporary leadership amid uncertainty and rapid change. He highlights three enduring yet counterintuitive principles for effective leadership: subtract rather than add, use a compass instead of a map, and practice humility. Attendees will gain valuable insights into navigating today’s complex challenges with confidence and clarity.
What really drives high-performance teams? In this eye-opening talk, Martin breaks with conventional wisdom to reveal the secret behind truly resilient, high-performing teams (hint: the key is balancing relationships and performance). He’ll share the critical role leaders play in making this happen and why this matters now more than ever. Drawing on exceptional teams from sports, such as the Chicago Bulls, and business, as well as cutting-edge research on psychological safety, team dynamics, and humble leadership, this talk delivers surprising insights and actionable takeaways that will change the way you think about leadership and team performance.
In this sweeping and thought-provoking talk, Martin unpacks the forces reshaping our world, from artificial intelligence to geopolitical upheaval and economic uncertainty. Drawing on historical parallels, he reveals three unexpected but essential predictions for how these disruptions will impact business and society. With clarity and insight, he highlights the key actions leaders must take to navigate volatility, build resilience, and seize new opportunities. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for understanding today’s most pressing global developments and a roadmap for leading through uncertainty.
Based on the TED talk that became a global sensation, Martin challenges your team in this keynote to reconsider their definition of effective leadership, highlighting that true greatness lies in preventing crises rather than responding dramatically to them. Drawing lessons from the disaster-prone explorer Ernest Shackleton and other similarly famous, but consistently unsuccessful leaders, he challenges conventional views and offers a fresh perspective on what makes a leader truly exceptional. Attendees will learn to appreciate the often overlooked skill of crisis prevention and learn to cultivate the three universal traits of effective leaders: fluency in context, a balance of humility and confidence, and a pragmatic mindset.
Martin brings a unique historian’s perspective that keeps us grounded in human-centred values, learnings and future endeavours. In times of AI and fast technological advancement, Martin invites us to think creatively and exercise critical reasoning.
Martin was a very open and engaging speaker, he generously shared a lot of valuable research from his work, but also openly shared his own experiences in life and leadership in a very relatable way.
