Stop inventing cool stuff your customers don’t want.
Nathan Baird is the founder of customer-driven innovation and growth firm Methodry (Method·ry) and author of Innovator’s Playbook (Wiley). An internationally experienced innovation strategist, facilitator, trainer, and speaker based in Sydney, he has been practicing and leading Design Thinking and innovation for over 20 years.
A former Partner of Design Thinking at global management consultancy KPMG, Nathan established and led KPMG’s national Human-Centred Design practice. He has designed and delivered hundreds of innovation projects, thousands of workshops, and spent tens of thousands of hours building leadership and innovation capability across industries including financial services, FMCG, technology, government, and sports — with clients such as the Australian Institute of Sport, Bausch & Lomb, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Diageo, Les Mills, Siemens, and Unilever, as well as startups, SMEs, not-for-profits, and government agencies.
Nathan is passionate about democratising innovation while maintaining rigorous standards of teaching and practice, helping individuals, teams, and organisations to embed innovation as a repeatable, impactful capability. He also serves as an Adjunct Program Director at AGSM @ UNSW Business School, sharing his experience in embedding human-centred design and innovation across enterprise-scale organisations.
Having worked both client-side and consultancy-side, and now running his own company, Nathan combines commercial rigor with practical expertise, guiding leaders and teams to make innovation real, scalable, and relevant in today’s complex and rapidly changing world.
Talking Points
Stop Inventing Cool Sh*t Your Customers Don’t Want!
Innovation is one of the most critical endeavours of modern business, yet nearly 40% of innovations fail. Too often, teams jump straight to solutions without fully understanding the customer problem, wasting time and resources on ideas that don’t stick. In this interactive and experiential keynote, Nathan shows how a Design Thinking and experimentation-led approach can dramatically improve the odds of success. Attendees will explore why most innovation misses the mark, the make-or-break phases of innovation, and the three capabilities needed to design solutions customers truly love.Stop Inventing Cool Sh*t Your Customers Don’t Want!
Key Takeaways:
• Why falling in love with the problem drives better innovation outcomes.
• How to stop jumping to solutions and focus on the real problem.
• The critical early stages of innovation that set projects up for success.
• Ways to apply and embed customer-centricity, creativity, and experimentation in teams.
• How a structured innovation approach delivers practical business impact.
Boosting Creativity in Your Teams
Ideas are the currency of innovation, customer experience, technology, people, and transformation programs — yet most organisations aren’t deliberately set up to make creativity flourish. In fact, organisational structures, habits, and mindsets often unintentionally block it. In this interactive and experiential keynote, Nathan explores the five key blockers to individual, team, and organisational creativity and shows practical ways to overcome them. Attendees will discover how to unlock creativity in everyone, even those who don’t see themselves as “naturally creative,” and how to create the conditions for breakthrough ideas to emerge.Boosting Creativity in Your Teams
Key Takeaways:
• The five common blockers that prevent creativity at individual, team, and organisational levels.
• How to create the conditions that allow creativity to thrive in any setting.
• Techniques to unlock fresh ideas from all team members, regardless of experience.
• Practical approaches to facilitate workshops that generate breakthrough thinking.
• How to embed creative habits and mindsets to drive ongoing innovation.
Innovation: The Leadership Skill of Now
Innovation is no longer just the domain of startups or specialised teams — it is now a critical leadership capability for navigating today’s fast-changing, unpredictable world. Yet most leaders are not equipped with the skills, mindset, or confidence to lead innovation effectively. In this interactive and experiential keynote, Nathan introduces the Innovative Leader Ladder and Team Innovation Operating Model, showing how leaders can embed innovation in their teams, create the right conditions, and move from managing business-as-usual to delivering measurable growth through experimentation and new ideas. Attendees will explore how innovation differs from traditional operations, why it is tailor-made for uncertainty, and practical ways to lead their teams to innovate consistently.Innovation: The Leadership Skill of Now
Key Takeaways:
• Why innovation is the leadership skill of now and critical in a VUCA world.
• How leading innovation differs from managing business-as-usual operations.
• The progression of impact from business-as-usual to enterprise-wide innovation leadership.
• Practical ways to create conditions, processes, and behaviours that embed innovation in teams.
• How to turn aspiration into action, making innovation a repeatable, measurable capability.
Customer-Centricity, Empathy & Insight in Teams
Insights are the lifeblood of innovation, design, and business success, yet too many organisations still invest in solutions for non-existent customer needs. In this interactive and experiential keynote, Nathan draws on 20 years of experience embedding customer-centric approaches across industries and continents. He shows how to uncover what truly matters to customers and how to turn observations into actionable insights that inspire opportunities and unlock growth.Customer-Centricity, Empathy & Insight in Teams
Key Takeaways:
• The customer insights behind some of the world’s biggest brands.
• Why customer insight is the lifeblood of innovation and all business activities.
• The difference between data and actionable insight.
• How to build empathy for customers to uncover what truly matters and define meaningful problems worth solving.
• Techniques to turn observations into meaningful insights that inspire novel solutions and unlock growth.
• How to create the right behaviours and environment to help teams be more customer-centric and insightful every day.
Establishing and Scaling a Kick-Ass Customer-Centric Innovation Practice
Building a successful innovation practice isn’t easy. Drawing on 20 years of experience establishing and scaling innovation practices across a brewery, a bank, a nation, and a Big 4 consultancy, Nathan shares candid lessons from the front line. In this interactive and experiential keynote, he explores the critical success factors for creating a thriving practice, the common pitfalls and false paths, and how to spot early warning signs that your innovation practice may be at risk. Attendees will gain practical insights into what it takes to build a customer-centric innovation unit that delivers real impact.Establishing and Scaling a Kick-Ass Customer-Centric Innovation Practice
Key Takeaways:
• The different types of innovation practice, and which approaches deliver the greatest success.
• The core principles for establishing and scaling a high-performing customer-centric innovation practice.
• Common traps, pitfalls, and false paths — and how to avoid them.
• How to identify early warning signs that a innovation practice is at risk.
• Strategies for pivoting, progressing, or course-correcting to ensure sustainable impact.
• Practical lessons from real-world examples across teams, organisations, and countries.
Video
Nathan Baird | Design Thinking, Customer-Centric Innovation and Experimentation | Saxton Speakers
Nathan Baird shares practical insights into design thinking, customer-centric innovation and experimentation, using real-world examples to show how organisations can uncover unmet needs and design better solutions. This keynote sample highlights how empathy, observation and testing ideas lead to stronger customer experiences and commercial outcomes. Nathan is available to book for Keynotes and workshops through Saxton Speakers.Nathan Baird is one of Australia’s leading design thinkers and a truly compelling speaker. Author of Innovator’s Playbook, he brings authority, warmth, and energy to every presentation, enga ... keep reading Good Design Australia
Nathan Baird is an exceptional speaker and facilitator, bringing clarity to complex ideas, balancing academic rigour with real-world relevance, and creating an environment where participants feel challenged and supported. He reads the room, draws out diverse perspectives, and engages audiences with credibility, warmth, and authority.
Nathan is one of Australasia’s leading Design Thinking and Innovation experts. An engaging speaker, facilitator, and author, he draws on real-world experience leading hundreds of innovation projects and embedding innovation globally. Warm, practical, and approachable, he inspires teams to collaborate and innovate with confidence.
Nathan was an outstanding speaker and facilitator at our Future Forum events. He brings key themes to life through storytelling, connects effortlessly with diverse audiences, and balances warmth, energy, and constructive challenge. He creates high-energy, supportive spaces that inspire participation and stretch thinking.
Nathan Baird is a master presenter whose deep authority and vivid storytelling engage audiences of all sizes. He is one of the few speakers I’ve deliberately sought out repeatedly—to learn and feel re-energised about innovation and solving customer problems.
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