Ade is a former information technologist who studied Physics / Astrophysics. Today he focuses on helping organisations and people thrive in the digital age. He uniquely combines technology, business, trends and anthropology to provide a fascinating perspective on how to develop organisations that people want to work for, and buy from. His zoom out approach makes him an ideal opening keynoter or ‘big ideas’ speaker.
Ade is a former information technologist who studied Physics / Astrophysics and has worked for the European Space Agency. He has worked in over 30 countries, across many sectors with many of the world’s leading brands. He is a former Financial Times and CIO magazine columnist, and has lectured at MIT Sloan School of Management on digital leadership.
Ade speaks to primarily a leadership audience on how the world is changing, its impact on business and people, and how leaders need to respond both personally and strategically.
Ade has a unique ‘bits to boardroom’ understanding of the issues. He has developed an anthropological hypothesis to explain what is happening as we enter the digital age, and how we might best respond.
Ade is considered original, engaging, provocative and insightful. His zoom out approach makes him an ideal opening keynoter or ‘big ideas’ speaker.
Recent speaking clients include:
Beyond Nine to Five – Your Career Guide for the Digital Age by Ade McCormack
BIZ 4.0 An Anthropological blueprint for business in the digital age by Ade McCormack
Attention Dynamics by Ade McCormack
IT Demystified by Ade McCormack
"Ade spoke at Microsoft Sweden´s biggest event called TechDays. Ade's session 'Does the IT department have a future?' got the 3rd best score out of all 85 speakers (score 8.41/9). He did a great job challenging the IT people in the audience to better understand the business needs of their company. Given this was a summit primarily aimed at technologists his ranking is highly impressive. I can recommend Ade." - Göran Ölander, Enterprise Marketing Manager, Microsoft – Sweden
"Ade was a guest keynote presenter at the 2009 Gartner Outsourcing & IT Services Summit in London. His presentation was extremely well received by the audience, with feedback such as "very engaging", "focused and relevant", and "some interesting perspectives & funny!" I found Ade to be very easy and reliable to work with. He delivers presentations that are challenging, well considered, informative and humorous. I would be happy to engage him again for future speaker engagements." - Shane O'Rourke, Director, Gartner
"Ade gave an inspiring Keynote speech to IT Service Management Forum Conference audience in Finland. I would recommend Ade to anyone looking for an excellent speaker." - Mervi Vikki-Aaltonen, Deputy Chairman of the Board, itSMF Finland
"I invited Ade to participate in a roundtable discussion on the future of technology; the discussion was part of some important research that we're doing. His insightful comments covered new ground in an innovative way, and were a valuable contribution." - David Moloney, Director, PWC
Ade spoke on the emerging 21st Century CIO role at the CIOnet UK Annual Conference. He was authoritative, clear and highly rated by the audience, building a strong case for change. - Nick Smith, UK Network Leader, CIOnet
"We engaged Ade to open up our Perspectives event in Geneva with a keynote on the future of work. Ade delivered an interesting and thought provoking speech. All feedbacks were very positive. The audience was impressed and inspired by his thoughts and experiences around this hot topic. We intend to re-engage Ade as part of our enterprise IT leadership communications." - Suzi Preradovic, Marketing Manager, Microsoft
"I had the pleasure of working with Ade at the CEEIT 2009 - Central and Eastern European IT Leaders Summit where he delivered a keynote speech on the subject of CIO leadership. Not only the content was at a very high level, presenting leap-ahead ideas on the subject, but also his style of delivery met the expectations of the attendees, which resulted in him becoming one of the highest rated presenters." - Mihaly Nagy, Managing Director, Stamford Global
"The importance of e-skilling cannot be over-emphasised. Productivity growth requires that European citizens not only acquire digital skills for the work and study they currently do, but equip themselves with the tools needed to deal with the pace of the digital revolution sweeping across all cultures and societies. McCormack encourages stakeholders to re-examine the ways in which European business, education and government approach life-long skilling. For European business and society to benefit in competitive times, those who strive for excellence will be the winners. The e-Skills Manifesto provides a vision for Europe to keep pace with and stay ahead of the competition." - Johan Deschuyffeleer on Ade's e-Skills Manifesto book, Senior Vice President, Technology Services EMEA, HP