Chris Hirst – Post-Merger Integration Keynote Speaker
Direct answer
Chris Hirst is the former Global CEO of Havas Creative Group who integrated 10,000 people across 100+ countries and ran a $1bn P&L. He hands senior teams the operating language to turn Day 1 into actual behaviour change, not integration theatre – so the room leaves knowing what they will do differently on Monday.
Most integration speakers have written about it. Chris has done it at scale. He led the Havas Creative Group integration era as Global CEO – 10,000 people, 100+ countries, $1bn P&L – and took the network from mid-pack to record growth and profits. He brings the unvarnished operating view: which Day 1 calls actually decide whether two companies merge or one absorbs the other, and which calls are decoration. The room gets a working language for the first 90 days, not a slide deck.
Want to ask about Chris? ChrisHirst@clash.cc
Stage presence
Buyer confidence
Room-ready delivery
Why Chris
Has integrated companies at scale, not written about it from the sidelines
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. He is the author of No Bullsh*t Leadership (Profile Books) and No Bullsh*t Change (Profile Books), and his third book Indispensable (Macmillan Business, paperback forthcoming 11 June 2026) sits on this material. The integration keynote draws on the Schwerpunkt principle and his Culture as Concrete model from No Bullsh*t Change – culture starts liquid in the first 90 days, then sets hard. He anchors on the Grey London turnaround he led before Havas, when the first move on a failing agency was to pull down the office walls and rebuild the seating plan into client-centric teams – integration by behaviour, not by deck.
- 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
Your senior leaders leave with a shared operating language for the integration window. They know which behaviours have to land in the first 90 days for the cultures to actually merge rather than coexist, where to concentrate force using Schwerpunkt instead of running ten parallel workstreams, how to tell the difference between an integration deliverable and integration theatre, and how to read the early signal that one culture is quietly absorbing the other. They leave with one decision each that they will make differently in the next two weeks, and the language to explain that decision to their own teams without consultant vocabulary.
Topic focus
Post-Merger Integration
The Problem
Why most post-merger integrations stall in the first 90 days
When Chris took over as CEO of a failing London advertising agency, the first move wasn't a strategy deck. It was pulling down the offices, removing department boundaries, and making everybody sit in client-centric teams. Visible. Fast. Wired to the work. He uses it as the integration anchor on stage because the principle is identical when two companies have to merge: the seating plan, the hiring pattern, and the meeting calendar decide whether cultures actually combine or one quietly absorbs the other.
The framing in No Bullsh*t Change (Profile Books) is sharper. Integration becomes theatre the moment leadership treats it as a programme rather than a behaviour change. Two cultures do not merge by themselves. The leadership team decides which way it goes by what they do in the first 90 days, while the culture is still liquid. Schwerpunkt: pick the one point of maximum effect and put weight there. Chris ran exactly this discipline across Havas – 10,000 people, 100+ countries – and the network moved from mid-pack to record growth.
Inside the top team, the operating cadence sharpens. Decisions get named in plain language. Workstreams without a behaviour attached get retired before they harden. The senior team starts treating the seating plan, the hiring pattern, and the meeting calendar as the integration – because they are. The values document is the wallpaper. The first 90 days are the floor.
Key Takeaways
What Your Audience Leaves With
Integration is a behaviour change, not a programme – name the behaviours that have to land in the first 90 days.
Apply Schwerpunkt: concentrate force on the single point of maximum effect, not ten parallel workstreams.
Culture starts liquid and sets hard – the first 90 days decide whether the cultures merge or one absorbs the other.
Read the early signals: seating plans, hiring patterns, and meeting calendars are the integration, not the deck.
Trade certainty for pace – act on 40-70% of the information, never less, never more.
FAQ