Philip Delves Broughton Keynote Speaker

Oil, Energy and the Middle East: Lessons From History For Today’s Crises.

The world wants the Middle East’s oil and gas, but does not always share its political priorities. Every so often, the fragile compromises between the region’s energy superpowers, and the buyers of its essential commodities, break down. Nations, companies and individuals panic until a new order settles in place. Until, of course, the next inevitable crisis.

Drawing on research for his upcoming book about the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 and the reordering of the world which followed, Philip Delves Broughton offers a framework for understanding the contemporary interplay between energy and geopolitics. This speech is rich in characters, stories and analogies which give a highly discussable context to today’s challenges.

The Art of the Sale: Lessons From the World’s Best Salespeople For All Of Us.

As a student at business school, Philip was surprised to find that sales was not on the curriculum. Yet without sales, no business happens. So he set off around the world to meet salespeople in different fields, from the rug seller in a Moroccan souk to the life insurance saleswomen of Tokyo, from the telephone pounding boiler rooms of technology sales, and the irresistible design gurus at Apple, to the long-term relationship salesmen of Boeing.

Everywhere he went, he asked the same questions: what makes a great salesperson? How do you match your character to the different kinds of selling? Where are the lines between truth and sales, between building trust and getting paid? Can sales be taught? Or is selling a natural gift?

This is speech which will provoke salespeople new and experienced to think hard about their vital profession - and what it takes to succeed.

Finding Your Voice: How Business Can Speak so People Will Listen

As an author and speechwriter, Philip has worked closely with some of the biggest names in business, including Stephen Schwarzman, the founder and CEO of Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset firm, and Ana Botin, the executive chairman of Banco Santander, Europe’s largest bank. As Editor-in-Chief at the Brunswick Group, a global communications firm, he wrote speeches for senior executives at firms including Disney and Nvidia.

This speech explains how anyone in business can communicate convincingly, by abandoning the tired formulas and word salads of most corporate language, and engage more naturally with audiences large and small. Philip talks about how top business people balance familiarity with power, conveying a real sense of who they are and what they want, without sacrificing the authority essential to leadership.

Great business leaders: born or made?

In his early 30s, Philip left a successful career as a reporter to go business school. After he obtained his MBA, he wrote a book about the experience, Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School, which provoked an impassioned response around the world. The Wall Street Journal called it “horrifying and very funny”, and The Economist an “excellent layman’s guide” to the industry of business education. Harvard Business School tried and failed to stop its publication.

In this speech, Philip asks basic questions relevant to anyone in business: can business actually be taught? And can it be taught by academics? If so, how come so many great business leaders never went to business school? He challenges the notion that a classroom is the place to learn about this vast and complex human activity. He draws on his short book How to Think Like An Entrepreneur, and breaks down the various silos of business studies to ask what can and should be taught in MBA programs, and what cannot and should not. In particular, he questions the idea that business schools have any place teaching ethics or wishy-washy courses in personal development. This is a funny, provocative speech which will fuel conversations long afterwards.