About Kian Gohar 

Kian Gohar is Founder & CEO of Geolab, an innovation research and leadership training firm. Furthermore, he is a master facilitator and has coached the CEO and leadership teams of over 50 companies in the Fortune 500 on innovation, disruptive technologies, moonshot thinking, leadership and the future of work.

He’s co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Competing in the New World of Work, published by Harvard Business Review and with #1 NY Times bestselling author Keith Ferrazzi. This bestselling book explores the most important leadership behaviors and team skills necessary to succeed in the post-pandemic era. Moreover, it outlines how to build successful hybrid workplaces and workforces.

Previously, Kian was an executive director at the XPRIZE Foundation, where he founded the world’s leading corporate innovation ecosystem. Additionally, he was also an executive director of Singularity University in Silicon Valley. His 20-year innovation career spans venture capital, academia and startups around the world. Early in his career, he was a Luce Scholar in China.

A sought-after public speaker, Kian’s been featured in global media like CNBC, Fortune, Fast Company, HBR, Axios, and NPR, and headlined marquee events like SXSW and the World Economic Forum. He speaks 5 languages, is a graduate of Harvard Business School, the London School of Economics, and Northwestern.

Keynote Topics and Outcomes

Go Forward to Work

Based on his Wall Street Journal bestselling book Competing in the New World of Work, Kian will present how every organization can create a successful hybrid workplace for the future of work. With vivid storytelling developed from a 2-year research project with Harvard Business School and interviews with 2000 executives from around the world, Kian will reveal key leadership traits, team behaviors and organizational attributes needed in this new hybrid world of work and explain the “Six Myths” each organization must dispel to successfully compete and win the war for talent in the Great Resignation. Finally, Kian will explain how to learn the key “Highest Return Practices” needed for this new era of hybrid work: from collaboration and inclusion, to agility, resilience, and foresight.

How to Build a Moonshot

Drawing from his expertise building literal moonshots to space for the XPRIZE Foundation, Kian will present audiences with a step-by-step guide on how to shift their mindset about what’s possible and build a one-way ticket to their future. He’ll explain how to identify one’s most audacious dream, how to tackle the most important obstacles, how to challenge conventional thinking, and make one’s wildest dreams come true. This inspirational and motivational keynote will empower everyone in general audience sessions to leap forward into their future, knowing that their impossible, is possible!

Thinking Like a Futurist

What will the world look like in 10 years and how will technology and innovation change the future of every organization? In this futurist keynote, Kian will highlight the major technology trends being developed in technology labs and changing every major industry. Kian will explore advances in the convergence of technologies like AI, robotics, blockchain, web3, and crypto, and will give audiences concrete takeaways to build their exponential future.