Chris Hirst – Change Management Keynote Speaker
Direct answer
Chris Hirst is the former Global CEO of Havas Creative Group who ran a 10,000-person, $1bn P&L turnaround. His change keynote is for buyers whose orgs have been transforming for two years and are losing the room. It resets what change actually means – behaviour at the level of the work – and hands the senior team a single point of effort, not ten parallel workstreams.
Two years into a transformation programme, the senior team is tired and the floor has stopped listening. Chris's change keynote is the reset. He has run the work, not just written it. The Havas turnaround – mid-pack to record growth, on a $1bn P&L – sits behind every framework. The room leaves with a sharper definition of change, a single Schwerpunkt, and the discipline to retire workstreams that have no behaviour attached.
Want to ask about Chris? ChrisHirst@clash.cc
Stage presence
Buyer confidence
Room-ready delivery
Chris was Global CEO of Havas Creative Group, responsible for 10,000 people across 100+ countries and a $1bn P&L. He took the network from mid-pack to record growth and profits – a public, measurable change record. He is the author of No Bullsh*t Change (Profile Books), where the behaviour-first model and the Schwerpunkt principle sit at the centre of the operating view. His third book Indispensable (Macmillan Business, paperback forthcoming 11 June 2026) extends the work. The change keynote anchors on the Dreadnoughts / valves story – the Royal Navy's pre-WWI shift hinged on a small, decisive engineering choice rather than a grand vision. Chris uses it to mark the rule: all meaningful change reduces to behaviour change at the level of the work.
- Former Global CEO of Havas Creative Group
- Best Business Book of the Year winner
- Trusted by Google, PwC, Verizon and global leadership teams
What Your Audience Leaves With
A usable frame for the decision in front of them
Senior leaders and change owners leave with a working test for what counts as change. If the behaviour at the level of the work has not shifted this month, the change did not happen, regardless of what the dashboard says. They have a single Schwerpunkt – one decisive point of effort – instead of ten parallel workstreams. They have a permission slip to retire programmes with no measurable behaviour attached. And they have plain language to explain the reset to managers, so the cascade lands without the usual change-fatigue tax.
Topic focus
Change Management
The Problem
Why most change programmes die of fatigue, not failure
Chris has been in the seat where change doesn't land. Before Grey London, six years as managing director on a turnaround that never turned. Within twelve months the new team had begun to shatter. Over the next four years new CEOs came and went, the business stayed stubbornly unchanged, and by 2009 he had become part of the problem himself. He took the lesson with him into the next role.
The framing in No Bullsh*t Change (Profile Books) is sharper. All meaningful change reduces to behaviour change at the level of the work. If the behaviour at the level of the work has not shifted, the change did not happen. Chris reaches for the Dreadnoughts and the steam valve – the Royal Navy's pre-WWI shift didn't turn on a grand vision. It turned on one small engineering decision, made at the level of the work. The job of leadership is not to add workstreams. It is to find the Schwerpunkt, the single decisive point of effort, and put weight there until the behaviour moves.
The senior team starts counting differently. At least one workstream with no behaviour attached gets retired. The Schwerpunkt gets named out loud and resourced like it is the only thing that matters this quarter. Status reports stop carrying weight; behaviour at the level of the work does. The change programme becomes a list of behaviour shifts with names against them.
Key Takeaways
What Your Audience Leaves With
All meaningful change reduces to behaviour change at the level of the work.
Apply Schwerpunkt: pick one decisive point of effort and put weight there until the behaviour shifts.
Retire any workstream that has no measurable behaviour attached – it is overhead.
Measure change by behaviour at the level of the work, not by dashboard status.
Use the Leadership Equation: Impact = Clarity x Action – both terms have to be non-zero.
FAQ