Post-Merger Integration Keynote Speaker
Chris Hirst is a former Global CEO of Havas Creative Network who ran hundreds of companies, 10,000 people, across every continent. His post-merger keynote draws on Schwerpunkt, the Naysayer Protocol, and Culture as Concrete to show leadership teams why all meaningful change reduces to changing behaviours – and how to concentrate force on the single point that breaks through resistance fastest.
Chris Hirst's Schwerpunkt, the Naysayer Protocol, and Culture as Concrete show leadership teams why all meaningful change reduces to changing behaviours – and how to concentrate force on the single point that breaks through resistance fastest. Built from running hundreds of mergers and integrations across Havas Creative Network.
Why Chris Hirst
Why Book Chris Hirst for a Post-Merger Integration Keynote?
Chris Hirst led the turnaround of Grey and went on to run Havas Creative Network – hundreds of companies, 10,000 people, across every continent. He has been through more mergers, integrations, and restructures than most leaders see in a career. His three books – No Bullshit Leadership, Indispensable, and No Bullshit Change – codify the frameworks he built from that lived experience. He is not a consultant or an academic. He is a practitioner who turned around failing businesses and learned what actually works when two cultures collide. As he puts it: 'I took over at Grey in 2008/2009 and we were a really, really, really shit business. And in the interest of full disclosure, I had worked there for six years before then, so I'm not blaming somebody else for that shitness.'
What Your Audience Walks Away With
Primary audience: C-suite and integration leads in post-merger organisations. Core pain point: Two cultures, two sets of behaviours, one PowerPoint deck that changes nothing. Eighteen months in and the people who were supposed to integrate are still sitting on separate floors. Key message: All meaningful change reduces to changing behaviours. Culture is like wet concrete – once it sets, you need a sledgehammer. Change where people sit, who you hire and fire, how you allocate resources. Desired outcome: A unified leadership team that acts as a single indivisible unit, with clear Schwerpunkt, aligned behaviours, and the cultural momentum to move forward.
Topic Focus
Post-Merger Integration
The Problem
Why Most Post-Merger Integrations Fail
Most post-merger integration programmes treat culture as an afterthought – a workstream beneath finance, operations, and IT on the Gantt chart. Leadership teams pour months into harmonising systems and org charts, then send round a values document and call it done. Culture is not Pilates at lunchtime or free fruit. It is the behaviour of leadership and management. As Chris says: 'If you want to understand an organisation's culture, look at the seating plan.'
The second failure is trying to move every slider on the graphic equaliser up by 2%. Nobody notices. Schwerpunkt – the point of maximum effect – demands that you pick one decisive priority and concentrate disproportionate resources there until it breaks through. In a merger, that priority is almost always culture. One decisive move changes the whole landscape. If one priority goes up, another must go down.
The third failure is ignoring resistance. The Naysayer Protocol is brutally simple: triage who matters, ignore low-impact resistors, convert important detractors through clear personal upside and support, and cauterise irreconcilable blockers in key roles decisively. Most integration leaders try to bring everyone along. That is how mergers stall.
Key Takeaways
What Your Audience Leaves With
All meaningful change reduces to changing behaviours – culture is the primary workstream in any merger
Schwerpunkt: pick one point of maximum effect and concentrate disproportionate resources until it breaks through
The Naysayer Protocol: triage, ignore, convert, or cauterise resistance – do not try to bring everyone along
Culture is like wet concrete – act fast with hard physical changes before it sets
The seating plan reveals the real culture – change where people sit to change how they behave
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