Ideas don’t change organisations. People do.
With a name like Nils Vesk, many people expect a blonde Scandinavian who arrived carrying an IKEA instruction manual. Instead, Nils was born and raised in Australia, where he developed a lifelong fascination with helping people think differently and achieve better results.
Today, Nils is a leadership and innovation strategist, five-time author and international keynote speaker who has spent more than two decades helping organisations develop standout leaders, build innovative cultures and prepare for the future.
Long before design thinking became a business buzzword, Nils was applying practical creative-thinking methods inside Australian organisations—work later recognised by the University of Canberra for helping pioneer the field in Australia.
His practical, down-to-earth approach has seen him work with organisations including HP, SAP, IBM, Pfizer, Adobe and Nestlé across more than 18 countries.
Whether speaking on leadership, innovation or AI, Nils is known for making complex ideas refreshingly simple. His presentations combine engaging stories, practical tools, humour and immediately actionable strategies that audiences can apply the very next day.
Away from the stage, Nils is fascinated by psychology, human behaviour and the small habits that create extraordinary long-term results. He’s also a husband, father, surfer, hang glider pilot and yoga teacher who firmly believes some of life’s best business lessons come from outside the office.
His philosophy is simple: Ideas don’t change organisations. People do.
Talking Points
The Standout Leader
Ever noticed how some leaders seem to accelerate their impact, influence and opportunities, while others quietlyThe Standout Leader
plateau?
Drawing on the practical insights and real-world case studies from his latest book, The Underrated Leader, Nils
reveals what separates standout leaders from the rest.
Unorthodox Thinking: Discover how standout leaders solve problems differently, identify opportunities others
miss and create value in unexpected ways.
Elite Mindset: Learn how top-performing leaders overcome hidden traps like overthinking, perfectionism, self-
doubt and hesitation that quietly sabotage progress.
Irresistible Communication: Master the ability to communicate ideas with clarity, confidence and influence so
people listen, trust and take action.
Stop Playing Small: Many capable leaders unknowingly limit their growth through hidden behaviours such as overthinking, perfectionism, self-censorship, people-pleasing, avoiding visibility and waiting too long to take action.
The 3 leadership accelerants that separate standout leaders from the rest.
Practical tools to increase influence, impact and opportunity.
Strategies to overcome hidden behavioural traps that limit performance to merge AI with human innovation, minus the headaches.
A framework for identifying and leveraging your unique Signature Edge.service you are selling
Ways to communicate ideas so they are remembered, supported and acted upon.ure the ROI of your AI workload without breaking a sweat.
The mindset shifts required to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Breaking Business As Usual™
In today's cutthroat market, where the business game evolves faster than a viral trend, pausing to ponder can mean playing catch-up.Breaking Business As Usual™
'Business as usual' (BAU) might just hand the baton to your competition. 'Breaking Business As Usual' is about harnessing the power of swift, strategic change to outpace the pack, not just keep pace.
In our most time-pressed, complex era ever (and let's not even start on AI), "Breaking BAU" is Nils Vesk's revolutionary keynote, honed over two decades as a catalyst for change.
- Strategies to pinpoint and eliminate the friction points anchoring you to the status quo.
- Rapid, dynamic solutions that don't just patch up issues but dissolve them entirely.
- How to harness your untapped pockets of excellence and catapult your success trajectory.
- Implement 'Momentum mechanisms’ to turn ambiguity, and uncertainty into actionable solutions
- Hit the sweet spot of change, where prioritisation, motivation, and integration converge.
The 5min Innovator™
Everyday innovation for the time-poor.The 5min Innovator™
Innovation doesn't have to take long. In fact, we can innovate with as little as five minutes a day.
Now more than ever, innovative ideas are the currency for success. While we know innovation is valuable, it's a sad fact that too many people in organisations don't have the time to innovate... Or do they?
The good news is no matter how time-poor or how crammed our heads might be with traditional business management skills, with Nils' 5minute innovation techniques, anyone can start innovating to improve their results.
YOU'LL LEARN:
•Mental deck of quick practical processes to solve problems
•Redefine problems to discover the crux of a problem
•Use models to deconstruct & prevent mistakes
•Simple daily activities that generate improvements
"Absolutely brilliant. Put a new perspective on my thought process."
— Rory Muscat, Bankwest
Future Fix
Decode Market Trends—Before Your Competitors Even See ThemFuture Fix
Emerging trends hold the key to staying ahead of the competition, but most businesses struggle to identify and capitalise on them before it’s too late.
Future Fix reveals the key trends shaping the future and provides a simple, cost-effective method to spot and act on them—before your competitors do.
Blending foresight techniques with behavioural psychology, this keynote equips leaders and teams with a powerful playbook for recognising trends, predicting customer needs, and creating products and services that capture market demand.
What You’ll Learn:
- Key trends that will shape your industry and how to leverage them
- Behavioural techniques to decode what your customers really want
- How to create trend reports at a fraction of the usual cost
- Foresight principles to identify which trends are worth your attention
- How to distinguish real opportunities from fleeting fads
As a member of the World Future Society, Nils stays at the forefront of trend forecasting and business innovation—but what sets him apart from other futurists is his ability to bridge the gap between prediction and execution.
While others focus on long-term speculation, Nils delivers practical, real-world strategies that help businesses apply trends immediately to drive growth, innovation, and competitive advantage. His unique mix of creativity, commercial acumen, and proven methodologies ensures that audiences walk away with actionable insights they can implement the very next day.
This session will leave your audience equipped with the tools and mindset to outthink the competition, spot opportunities before they become mainstream, and position themselves as industry leaders.
Video
Nils Vesk | Innovation Expert & Keynote Speaker | Saxton Speakers
Nils Vesk has been applying, teaching, and researching innovation around the world for over 15 years. The key innovation problem he solves is that organisations have too few innovations and they are too far apart. Nils' research has identified that the major cause of this problem is that our biases get in the way of innovating. Simply put 'what we see changes what we see'. This is human nature, except it often results in us filtering and making decisions we're not even aware that we've made.What a great innovator! It’s clear why he’s worked with some huge brands! ... keep reading Oscar Kuś
Nils makes the complex world of innovation so simple.
Absolutely brilliant. He put a new perspective on my thought process!
Nils' presentation was a highlight of our three day event. It created a buzz in the room which followed through into breaks and ongoing sessions. It set the scene for our information sharing, it got people talking, and it generated ideas in the audience which enhanced the outcomes of our event.
Excellent session today with Nils on simplifying innovation.
Awesome presentation and great theatrics. Would recommend to anyone.
Nils has a fantastic attitude and he definitely puts on an entertaining session.
Nils was humorous and engaging. His information was simple to follow and great for SME businesses. He was so great!!!!
I highly recommend Nils Vesk as a speaker for your business. Nils presented to our entire agency and we received great feedback from all departments - from the creative teams to the 'suits'. He was an energetic and inspiring presenter who provided us with great ideas for how we can become more inventive. His ideation strategies would be applicable for any type of business - and I encourage any business leader who believes in the power of ideas to also get him involved in their business.
Nils helped us think and get our heads around what we needed to do as one group moving forward. It was a great experience for all and he challenged our thinking, gave us practical tools and got us to open our minds to make the journey.
Nils led us, he guided us, he facilitated, he challenged us, and most importantly he helped us innovate and become thought leaders. He was fabulous, his style is terrific his energy is contagious and we'd use him again in a heartbeat.
