The Future of Work - Global Speakers Bureau

Joel Mokyr

Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University and Senior Professor (by special appointment) at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at the University of Tel Aviv. He specializes in economic history and the economics of technological change and population change. He is the author of Why Ireland Starved: An Analytical and Quantitative Study of the Irish Economy, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective, The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, The Enlightened Economy: an Economic history of Britain, 1700-1850 and A Culture of Growth. His most recent book is Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000-2000, (joint with G. Tabellini and A. Greif) published by Princeton University Press in 2025. He has authored over 120 articles and books in his field.

He has served as the senior editor of the Journal of Economic History from 1994 to 1998, and was editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (published in July 2003), and serves as editor in chief of a book series, the Princeton University Press Economic History of the Western World. He served as President of the Economic History Association 2003-04, President of the Midwest Economics Association in 2007/08, President of the Atlantic Economic Association (2015/16), and is a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He serves as chair of the advisory committee of the Institutions, Organizations, and Growth program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He served as chair of the Economics Department at Northwestern University between 1998 and 2001 and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford between Sept. 2001 and June 2002.

Professor Mokyr has an undergraduate degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He has taught at Northwestern since 1974, and has been a visiting Professor at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Tel Aviv, University College of Dublin, and the University of Manchester. In 2006 he was awarded the biennial Heineken Prize by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences for a lifetime achievement in historical science. In 2015 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Economic History awarded once every twenty years. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Cliometric Society. In 2018 he was elected as a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association.

His books have won a number of important prizes including the Joseph Schumpeter memorial prize, the Ranki prize for the best book in European Economic history, the Donald Price Prize of the American Political Science Association, and the Allan Sharlin Prize of the Social Science History Association. He was made a doctor honoris causa by the National University of Uruguay in 2018 and by the University of Lyon II in 2020. He was awarded the Jonathan Hughes Prize for excellence in the teaching of economic history by the Economic History Association in 2019. In 2025 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Science, together with Peter Howitt and Philippe Aghion.

Patty McCord

Patty McCord brings the Silicon Valley concepts of fresh ideas and innovation and applies them to rethinking the way we work. She challenges norms and invites us to reconsider the idea of “best practices.”

From her many years working with companies that range from very large global tech companies to small very small innovative start-ups, Patty saw first-hand how companies can become slow and complacent and employees become cynics and whiners. She spent 14 years at Netflix experimenting with new ways to work. Making the Netflix culture deck become reality for the people who work there. From abolishing performance reviews to challenging the need for policies, Patty believes people come to work as fully formed adults with a desire to make an impact and be proud of what they do and she’s on a mission to spread the word that we can do this differently. She is frequently in the media with interviews and articles from Harvard Business Review, NPR, Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal. She speaks at CEO Forums, Business schools and for large groups around the world.

Paul Daugherty

Futurist, author, and technology speaker Paul Daugherty is among the most innovative executives in modern tech. A passionate and entertaining public speaker, Paul Daugherty shares insights gleaned from a career of brilliant ingenuity and constant innovation.

Paul Daugherty is consulting giant Accenture’s Group Chief Executive for Technology, and its Chief Technology Officer. He helps Accenture’s clients innovate at scale by doing the same for his own firm, directing its overall technology strategy. He also oversees Accenture’s R&D efforts, its tech-related ventures, and its role in the broader tech ecosystem.

While building a culture of constant innovation, Daugherty launched Accenture’s first cloud, SaaS, big data, and open-source businesses. He launched pioneering AI and blockchain initiatives, and has developed and scaled extended reality and quantum computing businesses. As a result, Accenture has proven to be a model for the kind of guidance its clients seek.

Daugherty’s writing appears in The Financial Times, the Economist, the Harvard Business Review, and other distinguished publications. He also co-authored the groundbreaking 2018 book, Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI. In it, Daugherty argues that wholescale, often disruptive, adoption of AI throughout an organization is good business. Human + Machine has been translated into six languages.

Ade McCormack

Ade McCormack is an experienced international keynoter and public speaker. His audiences range from a select gathering of executive diners through to arena-scale events.

His focus is on disruption and people-centric transformation. He covers the implications for business models, leadership and talent management. He explores the changing nature of risk and culture. He considers the path humanity is taking in respect of augmentation and cognition. Strategically, he provides guidance on how to harness disruption and thus create super-resilient organisations. Ade guides the audience on what they need to do to remain economically relevant in these increasingly uncertain and volatile times.

His thought leadership and practical experience enable him to provide both a zoom-out and zoom-in perspective. He is often asked to be the opening keynoter because his perspectives set a disruptive and mind-moving tone for the overall summit / conference / event.

His work has taken him to 40 countries working with the world’s most recognised brands across many sectors. He is a former Financial Times columnist on digital leadership, has lectured at MIT Sloan School of Management on that theme and today works with the University of Cambridge at the sharp end of executive education. Ade is also a strategic advisor in both the public and private sector. He has written six books on digital matters and has a ‘bits to boardroom’ understanding of the issues, given his past life as a technologist (IT and astrophysics).

Ade McCormack has been referred to as ‘an inspiring slap in the face’ for his ability to convey the true extent of the challenges that we all face coupled with a way forward that will ultimately liberate us.

The problem he addresses is that many organisations are in a tailspin because their business model was not designed for the growing uncertainty and volatility. Some leaders are in denial and some think that the digitalisation of their anachronistic model will somehow save them.

Ade will make them acutely aware of the scope of the problem they are facing and how holding their breath and hoping the world will return to normal shortly will not cut it. He will highlight the implications in relation to a variety of areas including leadership, risk, innovation, talent, business models and strategic planning (RIP). He will then introduce them to the concept of super-resilience and how to build what in effect is a people-centric situationally aware ‘living organism’.

In order to capture the attention of the audience, Ade draws upon a variety of disciplines, including strategy, IT, neuroscience, anthropology, biology and human performance. He uses very memorable soundbites and memes to maximise audience resonance and retention.

Ade McCormack storifies his keynotes and thus they play out like a compelling drama where your audience is the hero. There is even a love interest! And there is quite a twist at the end when the antagonist’s true role is revealed. Your audience can expect to leave profoundly moved, enlightened and inspired. Ade’s keynote will reset the bar in respect of subsequent conversations within your organisation / throughout your event.