In challenging times you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall back on your training.
Craig Davis has a healthy relationship with failure having fallen on his face and landed on his feet in equal measure.
He is a startup entrepreneur, advisor, mentor, board member, teacher and keynote speaker. He has worked on a corporate scale leading business and creative transformations across international networks of 10,000 people and worked at his kitchen table as an entrepreneur to start three businesses since returning to Australia 9 years ago.
Current Work
His most recent startup, Sendle, is a disruptive technology company locked in a ‘David and Goliath’ battle with Australia Post in the booming parcel delivery business. The AFR has recognised Sendle as one of Australia’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies, twice. Sendle is growing at a staggering rate through a commitment to remarkable customer experience, values-driven culture, innovation and service, and is Australia's first certified technology B Corp and Australia's first 100% carbon neutral delivery service. CMO Magazine also put Craig on their Top 10 marketers in Australia list two years running.
He is an Advisor to KPMG's High Growth Ventures helping them increase the speed and scale of startup successes in the Australian ecosystem. He is Adjunct Professor at UTS Business School, a mentor at the Startmate accelerator, and a Certified Teacher of Google's 'Search Inside Yourself' Leadership Programme. All of which are ways to exercise his abiding belief in human potential and our limitless capacity for creativity and innovation.
Previous Experience
Advertising: Craig worked at the forefront of the global advertising business for 20 years. After starting his own agency in Sydney he went on to lead Saatchi & Saatchi across Asia, and J Walter Thompson’s 10,000 strong network as Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide, based in London.
He has worked with many of the world’s biggest brands - Coca-Cola, P&G, HSBC, Unilever, Vodafone, Shell, Sony, Bank of China, Toyota, Kraft, Ford and Diageo to name a few - and won countless awards for effectiveness and creativity.
Craig also happens to be the fastest Australian to run a marathon at the North Pole - a long way from Dubbo where he grew up.
Talking Points
The Great Migration
Forget market share, think talent share. Your business is only ever as good as the people in it. In the tug-of-war for professional talent, startups are winning. What makes them so compelling and how do they work in ways that speak to the values and aspirations of the best and brightest? See examples drawn from Australia’s most successful startups.The Great Migration
With all that said, how will established businesses win? Hint: Ignore learning, impact, purpose, values and vision at your peril. But you’ll never win on these soft skills alone. In this presentation you will learn how to compete with the best new companies out there.
Who is this for?
C suite, senior leadership including heads of People and Culture and Leadership and Development professionals, and industry.
Key Takeaways:
1. Learn about the key drivers and motivations of young and restless talent
2. Understand what startups offer that make them so attractive to the best and brightest
3. Discover a simple model (LIC) to get three quick wins that will make you more competitive immediately
What tangible outcomes will the client be able to attribute to their ROI on this presentation?
- Give yourself a fighting chance of keeping the best people you have and attracting the new people you need. - - Fast track next-gen management.
- Up engagement and lower your attrition rate.
- Rethink your ways of working and build strategic support for diversity and inclusion.
Software is Eating the World and it is still Hungry
So you think the tech bubble has burst and the digital revolution was overblown in the first place? Hankering for change to slow down and for everything to go back to normal? That ain’t happening! The software revolution is just getting started.Software is Eating the World and it is still Hungry
Now software is eating the software that is eating the world. Markets and valuations of tech companies may have slumped in 2022 but just as we saw in the GFC, some of the world’s most astonishing and game-changing companies will be forged in the crucible of the current crisis.
As surely as you’ll never buy another VHS or CD player, or ever carry wads of cash around again, progress will continue to accelerate. Learn how to ride the next wave of creativity and ingenuity, or be left behind.
Who is this for?
C suite and senior leadership, industry associations, organisations that understand the need for change and organisations that don’t, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and small business owners.
Key Takeaways
1. Give yourself a break - you’re better at change than you think you are
2. Learn what “no pain, no gain” means in business - wherever your customers experience pain there is opportunity. If you don’t make the most of it, someone else will.
3. How to hack your way to the future - use other people’s software to solve your problems now
What tangible outcomes will the client be able to attribute to their ROI on this presentation?
This presentation is a kick in the pants for most organisations who move waaayy toooo slooow to stay competitive. It will inspire engagement and action around strategic priorities, ways of working and culture in large organisations. It will challenge the status quo and BAU mentality of most companies and accelerate
initiatives that could improve stakeholder outcomes, starting with customers.
Emotional Intelligence: The High Perfomance Advantage
Great leaders put themselves first, but not the way you think. Stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout account for a large proportion of leadership disappointments and outright failures. These forces turn up in everythingEmotional Intelligence: The High Perfomance Advantage
from boil overs to breakdowns. The data is incontrovertible. So, it makes sense for leaders to invest time and energy in themselves to ensure they can meet the challenges that make a company successful entails, right?
Leaders who look after themselves first aren’t selfish; they’re smart.
This interactive experience will help leaders examine themselves more closely than they probably ever have before and provide them with tools and techniques to understand how to optimise themselves in ways that will
support them as they, in turn, support their team and their business. Learn practices used by some of Australia’s best and brightest startup entrepreneurs.
It’s not about learning to be nice, it’s about learning how to be a happier, healthier and high-performing version of you.
Who is this for?
Business leaders, senior leadership, heads of People and Culture, heads of Leadership and Development, small business owners and industry bodies.
Key Takeaways
1. Discover the number 1 skill for great leaders, Self Awareness, and how to build it
2. Learn a simple roadmap that helps you lead yourself in order to better lead others
3. Experience three easy hacks to change the trajectory of your leadership (and your life). Go away and try them at home!
What tangible outcomes will the client be able to attribute to their ROI on this presentation?
Think of this like installing a software update… for leadership!
Leaders will actually get better instantly (if they follow the practices). That’s likely to turn into increased engagement, psychological safety, improved trust, empowerment, higher productivity, lower attrition and, ultimately, creativity, innovation and shifts to more positive company culture. It’s not a silver bullet, but
it’s a great first step on a journey to high-performance leadership and high-performance culture.
Video
Craig Davis | 'A New Way of Doing Business' at the 2014 Saxton Ultimate Event Experience
Craig Davis @SaxtonSpeakers Australia Speaks
Craig Davis | Introduction | Saxton Speakers
Craig Davis | Remarkability | Saxton Speakers
Craig Davis | Search Inside Yourself | Saxton Speakers
Craig Davis | Transformation | Saxton Speakers
As a creative director Craig Davis was awesome. Took JWT Worldwide from ninth in The Gunn Report's Table for Agency Networks to fourth in one year. He is a lovely writer - one of the best in ... keep reading The Gunn Report
Craig was the perfect speaker to open our Agile Leader executive education program. He understands and encapsulates in an entertaining and thought provoking way the present and the potential future. He made our senior business audience laugh, consider and engage in trends such as social media, the digital era, the importance of customer engagement which set the tone and pace for the next three days. He isn't a way out futurist, more a present-er - he uses trends and information to describe and imagine what our near future looks like, enabling us to think creatively about the wicked problems of today - which is far more useful and applied to our work.
The Creative3 forum bridges the gap between creativity and commerciality to provide the inspiration and tools to build a successful creative business. Craig's engaging, motivating and thought-provoking presentation spanned both these worlds conveying the value of creativity to improve business productivity. Craig has a natural gift for communication, with a charismatic style which resonated so well with our audience and speakers that two years later delegates are still talking about his keynote's impact and meaning. Building that type of audience connection is definitely an art which Craig has skilfully mastered.
Craig hit JWT like a whirlwind, his energy and enthusiasm were infectious and helped drive huge change within the business. Craig has the ability to stand on any stage and captivate any audience, from the most junior creative person to the most senior of clients. His knowledge of marketing is second to none. He is an outstanding leader, respected industry commentator and someone who took the leap to digital world early in his career. I'd go out of my way to hear Craig speak.
Craig Davis is an exceptional speaker. It's not often you get professional speakers who are so prepared to research and tailor their presentation to the exact needs of the conference - but on the two occasions we've used Craig Davis (and we've already booked him again for another client) we have seen exactly that - and the crowd is just so appreciative. Not only is Craig prepared to put the time in to his presentation to make it relevant for industry, he presents his challenges in a manner that is just so engaging. Craig has ranked 'most favourite speaker' both times we've used him.
