KEYNOTES
Speaking from experience
Naomi Simson, keynote speaking, boardroom briefings, webinars, Q&As
“Trust has never mattered more. I believe that we need more role models, people who can be counted on and believed in. “
“More is being asked of leaders. The need to engage teams remotely and keep stakeholders close, whist nurturing customer relationships is paramount, and still leading purposefully and sustainability. I have been calling it ‘intentional leadership’.
For 25 years I have been bringing people together whether it’s through my experience businesses, my speaking or media. Now more than ever to build a strong, and better way of working I am sharing my thoughts and ideas based on research, personal experience and case studies.
I urge audiences to play a bigger game. My personal motto is “If it is meant to be, it is up to me”. And if there’s one thing I leave my audience feeling, it’s focussed with a sense of possibility”.
To enquire about keynote speaking, online events, podcasts or media, please click below.
Keynote Speaking
Naomi Simson, is a much sought after keynote speaker – speaking on a variety of topics. She listens intently to the client brief and builds her presentations based on how the client is wanting to impact the audience. She speaks on entrepreneurship, small business, start up to scale up and business growth strategies. She is also called on for her insightful and thought provoking presentations on intentional leadership, the experience of work, and customer obsession. Find out more
Experience of Work
How people work has changed: Blended work, flexible work, remote work, work at home, work anywhere, work life balance, live at work and perhaps the office. This keynote shares the six-point framework to assist organisations make the right choice for them. More detail
Start up to Scale up
Entrepreneurship has a certain romance to it. In this presentation Naomi will cover the three elements to how to grow an enterprise. This is not just for start ups. Anyone wanting to see opportunity and scale an enterprise get value from the case studies, stories and the structured approach to growth. More detail
Intentional Leadership
Having a clear vision and working towards it as an organisation is important at the best of times. Having a leadership approach throughout the business creates a consistent culture. And corporate culture takes intentional leadership – Naomi shares from experience and other case studies. More detail
Passion to Purpose
From the best selling book Live What You Love in this presentation Naomi explores the journey from passion (personal energy) to purpose (making a difference.) She is entertaining, inspiring but most of all she urges people to play a ‘bigger’ game. This relevant for all age groups from students to retirees. More detail
Shared experience
As a woman of experience, Naomi has explored a number of ways to share her experience. Any of the below can be done virtually, though she encourages small groups to do experiences together which she can host. Find out more
Boardroom briefing
This can be hosted in a private dining room or at an experience. It can also be done virtually. Following a briefing process Naomi will design the experience and content based on the required outcome for the client
Masterclass
In this 3 hour session Naomi will navigate shifting from passion to purpose, from mission to vision, from planning to big hairy audacious goal – this masterclass follows a program through a workbook and presentation. It is about making sure that you know what you stand for, what you believe in and how you can contribute best.
Mentor Program
For organisations wishing to scale this is the ideal program to put your key leaders through. Three 1 hour sessions (2 weeks apart) – Many people struggle to find the words to explain or engage others in their purpose. These sessions with pre-work and exercises what could be possible for your business.
Hosted Experiences
From an art class to a hot air balloon flight. Choose an experience from the RedBalloon range and I will host the event and share from my keynote presentations leadership insights for your participants. This will be a truly memorable way to inspire your leadership team.
Online Events
Speaking from experience: I have shared my insights, challenges and leadership lessons three decades in business. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It is not what happens, but what we learn from it that makes the difference. Each virtual presentation is prepared the day before, based on audience and the brief of the client. The Salesforce presentation here was commissioned as part of it’s global Leading Through Change initiative. To date it is the most successful of the series with 11.8 Million views in the first 24 hours.
Handpicked Podcast
Series one launched 24 May 2021.
It could be called a short form mentoring session that gets straight to what business owners need to know. Guests ask their business questions and I handpicked advice around starting or saving a business and gives guidance on how to grow.
“Simson said she wanted to ensure season one had good diversity with rural, regional and metro businesses. “We also wanted start-ups and growth businesses and ones run by people of different genders and backgrounds.” After requesting businesspeople to get in touch, Simson got bombarded with offers. “The age range goes from a businessperson who started at 19 through to someone in their 60s.
“What unites them all are the same challenges – finding more customers, keeping staff engaged and motivated, growing the businesses and making more money.”
Simson has an army of followers across various platforms. She has a newsletter, also called Handpicked (visit naomisimson.com to subscribe) and has no less than 2.8m followers on LinkedIn.” Media Week
Keynote introduction
For 25 years as an entrepreneur, Naomi Simson has been bringing people together whether it’s with her experience businesses, her speaking or writing. Passionate about small business and local community, Naomi is considered a home grown success story.
Naomi had a corporate career with Apple, KPMG, IBM and Ansett Australia prior to becoming an entrepreneur. She is a prolific blogger, podcaster and business commentator, and appeared as the #RedShark in four seasons of Shark Tank Australia and she appears regularly on ABC The Drum. She is a non-executive director at Big Red Group, Australian Payments Plus, as we as the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation and the University of Melbourne Business and Economics Faculty.
A true business leader and influencer, with more than 2.7 million LinkedIn followers, Naomi is Australia’s most followed person on the business networking platform. She has three seasons of her podcast ‘Handpicked’, and she has authored two best-selling books Live What You Love, and Ready to Soar, and is sought after speaker.
Please welcome Naomi Simson.
Keynote Speaking Topics
1. Leading in challenging times
Entrepreneurship has a certain romance to it – but currently it is far more about how you align teams when people are working remotely. The world changed, what is expected of leaders is far greater than it has ever been. In this session Naomi shares what her enterprise is doing to evolve quickly, and adapt to uncertain times. Looking to consumer sentiment whilst staying focussed using community contribution. She shares her leadership beliefs which will be relevant to anyone wishing to influence others.
By aligning ‘the right team – and doing it virtually’ to a vision, a deep sense of engagement and purpose she accelerated her idea into something big – but she has not done this without many bumps in the road, and great people around her. During this keynote discussion, Naomi will share her experiences and insights on the frameworks she and her business partner are using, which are anchored around leadership, culture and the customer. She will finish the session by encouraging each participant to think about the ‘one thing’… that, if you worked on it, would make your experience of business easier each day. And whilst the near future is unknown she will connect audiences with her deep sense of positivity.
2. Future of Work is now
In this challenging keynote Naomi explores how people are adapting to the arrival of the future of work. Referring to the human elements of isolation, emotional resilience and the need to belong. Technology is playing a role, but there is so much more to managing a remote team in a set of unknown circumstances. Leadership decisions need to be rooted in a productive framework.
She will share cased studies on how remote teams with many backgrounds can come together and create productive focused teams.
11 March 2020 the future of work arrived – Australians (together with other workers around the globe) were asked to stay at home – this sets a whole new work paradigm – one that is shifting every day..
Businesses (and government) across Australia, in every sector are grappling with the pace of change both within organisations and across the broader community.
The workplace is changing, the definition of work is changing, how customers, employees and all stakeholders want to engage with organization is shifting rapidly too.
The challenge for leadership is to navigate all this data to find the most relevant, authoritative and insightful information to bring not only the right strategic input to decision making but to be challenge norms, myths and beliefs which might be limiting not just the enterprise but Australia as a whole.
According to McKinsey up to 5.1 million jobs will be affected by automation in Australia alone
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Knowing what you stand for The increasing nature of fluidity, mobility and optionality of ‘workers’ (what is known as the gig economy).
- Creating and employee framework Challenges facing remote, decentralized and project-based teams in building connection and trust when people may never meet. Yet the need for belonging and purposeful work will remain paramount
- Why People Work The motivation to participate, financial outcomes alone may not be enough – the impact of social and sustainability agendas
- Continued learning and improvement How do people learn effectively and adapt and transform to new technologies and business needs.
- Learn to identify the ‘One Thing’ With a sea of data and insights, what is the next step. Where to from here.
3. Experience Economy
Naomi has been a trailblazer in the Experience Economy since the term was first used. Now as a co-founder of the world’s third largest experience market place, she is well versed in what this truly means for business.
The definition of experience: “an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone”
‘Experiences’ is a term used for everything from customer interaction, to employee engagement. ‘Experiences’ is mostly used to denote the human element or emotional connection created. In a time of artificial intelligence, big data and analytics it is important to be reminded about the human side of business.
Every business is impacted by the phenomenon of #AccessOverOwnership and the Experience Economy. Businesses need to shift from being in the transaction game (have I got the right product at the right place for the right price?) to being in the experience game. Naomi urges audiences to consider how an experience can engage, entertain, build trust and emotional connection for your business?.
Referring to the Experience Economy White Paper. Naomi discusses The experience economy is also the ‘sharing’ economy and what this means for business. We live in a world of ‘social proof’ that if the experience is not recorded and shared then perhaps it did not happen.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- What is the Experience Economy – Considering the impact of access over ownership – and building emotional connection through experiences.
- White Paper Every participant will get access to download the full 32 page research study
- The millennial experience understanding that millennials are the largest customer and employee cohort in history and its all about experience.
4. Customer Obsession
In this colourful and inspiring keynote, Naomi explores the challenges faced by many businesses that are ever fearful of disruption. With retail closures being reported daily, Naomi spells out her approach to ‘protection from disruption,’ and speaks to the value chain each business must build.
Outlining her 12 point ‘to do list’ to stay at the leading edge, Naomi blends the tools available, including: big data, AI, omnichannel and personalised customer experience to create intimacy, relationships and ultimately growth. She asks the question “What job is your product being hired to do?” and “What can customers count on you for?”
This thought provoking presentation draws on cases studies from around the world and will leave audiences in no doubt that it is not all ‘gloom and doom’ in business – growth will come from building unbreakable customer relationships.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Knowing what you stand for – getting customers to talk about you and how to tackle the tricky world of social media.
- How to set priorities to invest in scalable customer relationships.
- The customer obsession and using a framework as a scorecard to align everyone to the customer experience cause.
5. Live What You Love – Personal Development
This presentation will touch, move and inspire. It is relevant to most groups and is all about making powerful choices to live a life that you love. “If you love what you do every day, you never have to work another day in your life.” This is about putting meaning in your work, discovering your passion, learning about positivity and sticking with it, and being persistent.
This keynote is all about fulfilling your true purpose. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, but knowing what drives you will give you the platform for a rich and wonderful experience of life. Naomi will share real and vivid stories from her personal and business life to demonstrate the power of her personal motto, ‘If it is meant to be, it is up to me.’ The one word we consistently hear after this session is ‘inspirational’. You will be inspired to take action.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Discover your passion – learn how to identify when you are in a flow and doing your best work.
- Take responsibility for what you want – not what others want for you. ‘If it’s meant to be it’s up to me,’ and choosing what is the one thing you need to work on.
- Play a bigger game – this does not mean tough times will disappear. As a result of this session you are likely to take on bigger challenges, and in turn, experience the joy of deep accomplishment and the resilience that you know you can count on.
Customer Feedback
Effervescent and powerful are two words which describe Naomi Simson’s presentation at a recent Stockdale & Leggo company event where she shook the room with her insight, innovation, vision, and wit. One of the best speakers our group has had the privilege to witness, Naomi’s delivery was world class, displaying a phenomenal ability to translate her own learnings and success into a relevant, thoughtful and intimate exhibition for our franchisees and their teams. A delight and a professional. Thank you.
Animated, dynamic, amusing…Naomi personifies RedBalloon’s culture. As a guest speaker at a Hudson Human Resources celebration, Naomi’s candid insights, self-deprecating humor and unapologetic passion for her business kept the audience engaged, entertained and challenged to think differently. I highly recommend Naomi as an inspirational speaker.
Thanks, Naomi, for the fantastic presentation at our ‘Talent Xchange Conference’ last week. We have had a stack of unsolicited feedback from delegates saying things like: ‘Naomi was amazing, I am going to implement changes immediately’, and ‘That was great, we will definitely be rethinking our engagement strategy’. Thank you for making our conference such a big hit!
Naomi, Thank you so much for passionately presenting to our senior women leaders yesterday. You were an absolute inspiration. Everyone’s feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Naomi is a dynamic, energetic and passionate speaker. She presents powerful and clear messages that not only resonate because they are personal accounts, but also because they provide a refreshing and honest viewpoint.
About Naomi Simson
For 25 years Naomi has been bringing people together whether it’s with her experience businesses, her speaking or writing. She is a strong advocate of business owners.
Known as entrepreneur and business leader; following the growth of RedBalloon which she founded in 2001, Naomi co-founded the Big Red Group (BRG) in 2017.
Naomi had a corporate career with Apple, KPMG, IBM and Ansett Australia prior to becoming an entrepreneur. She is a prolific blogger, podcaster and business commentator, and appeared as the #RedShark in four seasons of Shark Tank Australia. She is a non-executive director at Big Red Group, Australian Payments Plus and Global Marketplace. As well as the Cerebal Palsy Research Foundation and the University of Melbourne Business and Economics Faculty.
A true business leader and influencer, with more than 2.8 million LinkedIn followers, Naomi is Australia’s most followed person on the business networking platform. She has authored two best-selling books Live What You Love, and Ready to Soar, and is an engaging, humorous and insightful speaker.
Naomi is relatable across a broad variety of audiences and topics, often drawing on her personal experiences to provide thoughtful and valuable views into topics; including the future of work, purposeful leadership, entrepreneurship, personal development, customer obsession and sustainable, socially conscious business leadership. She is a regular panellist on ABC The Drum.
To find out more about Naomi’s availability and keynote topics, click here.