Dominic Thurbon
Dominic Thurbon helps leaders and organisations unlock value and navigate behaviour change, AI, truth, & disruption.
Dominic Thurbon is exclusively represented and managed by ODE Management for all keynote, workshop, MC and speaking engagements worldwide. ODE Management holds Dominic's diary and confirms all availability and fees for keynotes on behaviour change, leadership and AI adoption. Event organisers can book direct, and speaker bureaus can book on behalf of their clients.
To check availability, contact ODE Management on +61 2 9818 5199 (Asia Pacific) or +1 877 950 5633 (USA).
My speaker bio...
Dom is an internationally engaged speaker and facilitator who helps individuals and organisations drive behaviour change in the face of external disruption.
Dom has authored and researched best-sellers published in over 15 countries, on subjects as diverse as generational change, business strategy, purpose-driven leadership, the future of work and education, and disruption.
He has over 17 years’ experience as a successful senior executive and entrepreneur. At just 23, he was founder and Chief Creative Officer at Karrikins Group, a behaviour change agency he grew to over 150 staff across Australia, New Zealand and North America (acquired by EY in 2019). He was also founder and director at Educator Impact, a technology company providing on-demand teacher quality and student wellbeing solutions (acquired by Qoria in 2022).
Dom has been architect of multiple-award winning behaviour change programs that reach over 500,000 people per year. Over his career, Dom has spoken to a combined audience numbering in the tens of thousands across Australasia, Europe and North America, with clients spanning financial and professional services, technology, FMCG, pharmaceutical and automotive industries, as well as working extensively in education, Government and not-for-profit sectors.
His latest book, To Be Honest, explores how misinformation has evolved in the age of AI and algorithmic media, and why traditional approaches to transparency often fall short. It shows organisations what truthful leadership actually looks like in practice.
His other publications include (as author) Matter: Rising Above the Competition to Become the Obvious Choice, Purpose-Driven Leadership, and Talent Magnets: Attracting Top Staff; (as lead researcher) Flip: How counter-intuitive thinking is changing everything and Game On: How video games change work.
Dom is also a previous world top-10 debater, Tottenham Hotspur tragic, and hasn’t quite given up the dream of becoming a rockstar with his band The Glorious Fourth.
WOW! What a truly terrific, inspiring and informative session. The room was just buzzing!
CEO Forum Group
Dom was an outstanding keynote speaker and an absolute professional to work with - striking the perfect balance between inspiration and practical application.
QASEL Treasurer and Conference Convenor
I’ve spoken in over 40 countries at over 1000 conferences and I’ve just seen Dom. He did the most outstanding summary I’ve ever seen. Phenomenal. I’ve never come across anyone who’s done it as well.
Paul McGee, Global bestselling author, "S.U.M.O"
Dom brought our event to life. His passion and enthusiasm landed extremely well, with some excellent practical advice that people could immediately apply.
Specsavers
What Dom does in his closing keynote is like magic. He delivered the perfect closing session. He left people energized and inspired.
Managing Editor, Elite Agent
My speaking topics...
The Closer
A great conference deserves a great ending—one that leaves attendees inspired, energized, and ready to take action. Too often, the closing session is overlooked, yet research shows that the final moments of an event have a lasting impact.
Dominic Thurbon’s "locknote" is a unique, dynamic, and deeply personalized closing keynote that does more than recap content. With nearly two decades of experience as a world top-10 debater, speaker, and facilitator, Dominic masterfully distills key themes in real time, ensuring the conference ends on a high note with actionable insights.
This one-of-a-kind closing experience:
- Summarizes key themes in an engaging, insightful, and humorous way.
- Operationalizes learning, helping attendees turn insights into action.
- Energizes delegates, leaving them motivated and inspired.
Audience Takeaways:
- Clear, connected insights that tie together the conference’s biggest lessons.
- Practical strategies for applying new knowledge in work and life.
- An inspiring close that ensures attendees leave feeling uplifted and ready to take action.
Unlike a generic closing speech, Dominic fully immerses himself in the event, integrating real-time insights to create a seamless, engaging finale. His "locknote" ensures your conference doesn’t just end—it leaves a lasting impact.
Watch me...
The Truthful Leader
How businesses unlock value and drive growth through the simple act of telling the truth
So much value in business lies, untapped, behind an inability or unwillingness to tell the truth. Increased innovation, improved agility and change responsiveness, deeper engagement of teams and better financial outcomes are all fuelled by telling the truth.
And yet we live in a world where telling the truth increasingly seems like an optional luxury - a world dominated by 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'. In fact, despite its importance and its power, evidence suggests we are getting worse at it, not better!
For example, in a fact-check of the winning 2024 campaign for US President, only 3% of statements scored ‘true’. False stories are 70% more likely to be shared on social media than true ones, and spread up to 20 times faster. An ACCC review found 37% of businesses studied were engaging in ‘concerning conduct’ when it came to telling the truth.
The fact is that telling the truth is a behaviour, you're either doing it or you're not! And it's a behaviour that can improve and transform your business. So, in this dynamic, provocative, and deeply practical presentation, Dominic Thurbon: leadership and behaviour change keynote speaker will:
- Look at why and how telling the truth is so important to your business in driving performance, innovation, engagement and agility
- Explore why it's hard, why it often doesn't happen, and the effect that is having on us as leaders and business owners, and on our teams
- Look at the three levels of truth-telling (self, sector, system) that are most important to improving your performance
- Unlock a toolkit for 'making truth happen' inside your business in a way that drives change, improves outcomes and unlocks value
Watch me...
The Human Element of AI Adoption
How to get beyond the hype and start extracting breakthrough value from AI
Every company is talking about AI, but they’re not all getting value from AI. Having built and sold an AI-enabled tech company, Dominic Thurbon: behaviour change and AI leadership keynote speaker knows first hand the ones that are view AI as a people challenge first, and a technology challenge second.
That’s because with technology like AI, companies don’t change, people do.
For example, according to recent research from 2024, the companies getting the most value from AI are spending twice as much on people as they are on algos and tech. Gen AI “high performers’ do a much better job of helping everyone understand value and risks of AI in their daily job (52%) compared to those not getting value (only 21%)… this is what I mean by people first, tech second.
So, in this dynamic, provocative and practically useful session we will:
- unpack the ‘why’, the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of leading edge Gen AI technologies and share compelling, industry- and role-relevant case studies of how companies are getting value
- look at the human element of AI integration, and how ensure that our teams are set up and structured to adopt and get value from these new tools
- unpack the practical risk management and governance mindsets and frameworks required to avoid pitfalls and perils while still making progress
- Draw on Dom’s first-hand experiences building and selling an AI-enabled technology company to bring a real on-the-ground perspective the conversation
Watch me...
Making Behaviour Change Happen
Using the science of human behaviour to unlock innovation, navigate change and improve results
You have a behaviour change challenge… you just don’t know it yet!!
Ever heard someone in your business say “we need to be more innovative”, “we need to respond to disruption” or “we need to do things differently”?
I’m sure you have - after all, we are doing business amidst profound disruption. About 40% of CEOs say their business will cease to exist within 10 years without radical reinvention!
But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how much you know about innovation, how many books you’ve read on AI and disruption, how many podcasts you’ve listened to on sales effectiveness… if you can’t do behaviour change, you can’t do, any of them.
Conversely, if you can master the art and science of behaviour change, you can take you and your team’s performance to a whole new level— a core focus of Dominic Thurbon, behaviour change and leadership keynote speaker.
In this provocative and interactive session, we will:
- unpack the core drivers of human behaviour, and the 5 universal responses to change you will encounter in your team
- examine how organisations don’t change, people do - and how learning the art and science of behaviour change can drive your agenda
- share inspiring, industry-relevant case studies and stories that are packed with usable insights and apply them to leadership, marketing, sales, change and staff engagement
- unpack a toolkit we can use to be more effective in making change happen inside our organisations
Watch me...
Purpose, On Purpose
Making the most of ESG, sustainability and the purpose movement
The market has never been so hot for conversations about purpose, sustainability and ESG. On one level, that’s brilliant: it could herald in a new age of sustainable business and accelerate our transition to a cleaner, more just, more equitable world (and help companies innovate and transform, along the way).
On another level, it runs the very real risk of going the way that many similar conversations have gone before: more marketing and PR hype than action.
The truth is, you cannot PR your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into. If we want to get real value both as a business and as a society out of sustainability, ESG and corporate purpose, we have to turn words into action and intent into impact.
As Dominic Thurbon, ESG and behaviour-change keynote speaker emphasises, organisations succeed only when purpose is embedded into behaviours, systems, and leadership — not slogans.
In this dynamic and engaging session, we will:
- look at the value and the drivers of ‘purpose’ in business, and how you bring it to life for both customers and staff
- demistify what ESG and sustainability mean for you and your team
- examine mega-trends that drive both the risks and opportunities of ESG
- unpack the oft-misunderstood link between ESG, sustainability and corporate ‘purpose’
- develop practical, usable strategies that can help you leverage the ESG agenda to drive greater sustainability and improved performance
See me...
https://odemanagement.com/speakers/dominic-thurbon#sigProId4fceef1a29
Watch me...
Scams and Cybercrime: Why You Need a Behaviour Change Keynote Speaker
Everyone runs the scam training. Someone still pays the fake invoice. Dominic Thurbon reckons that gap isn't a knowledge problem, it's a behaviour problem, and closing it is what actually protects your business. Here's why he's the speaker to put in front of your audience. Read more +
Disruption Is a People Problem, Not a Strategy Problem
Disruption is not slowing down, and organisations that thrive through it understand one thing: it is people, not processes, who change. Dominic Thurbon brings more than two decades of research and real-world experience to help leaders unlock the behaviour change capabilities their teams need most. Read more +
Real Estate’s Most Undervalued Assets: Trust & Truth
Real estate agents remain among the least trusted professionals in Australia. Dominic Thurbon argues that the path to rebuilding trust starts with a commitment to truth. His practical framework of seeking, speaking, and hearing the truth shows leaders how to turn transparency into a genuine competitive advantage. Read more +
'To Be Honest': Dominic Thurbon's New Book on Why Truth is Our Greatest Asset
Dominic Thurbon's upcoming book ‘To Be Honest’ explores how misinformation has evolved in the age of AI and algorithmic media, and why traditional approaches to transparency often fall short. And more importantly, it provides everyone who cares about the truth a practical toolkit to restore organisations’ relationship with facts. Dom unpacks why we lie, why it doesn't work, and what truthful leadership actually looks like in practice. Read more +
Why Trust Starts with Truth: Lessons for Cybersecurity and Beyond
Your biggest cybersecurity vulnerability is not your technology. It is your culture. Dominic Thurbon applies two decades of behaviour change research to help organisations build the trust, honesty, and governance that make them genuinely secure from the inside out. Read more +
Seeking, Speaking and Hearing the Truth
Everyone thinks honesty is important, but how often do we really tell the truth at work? Dominic Thurbon dives into why truth is rarer than we admit, and why it’s the ultimate performance driver for leaders. As one of Australia’s most respected leadership and performance keynote speakers, Dominic’s three golden rules show how to seek truth, speak truth, and hear truth to build stronger teams and more authentic leadership. Read more +
Dominic Thurbon - The Truth about AI Disruption and Transformation
Dominic Thurbon’s presentations reveal that AI success hinges on human behaviour, not just technology. With energy and insight, AI transformation and behaviour change keynote speaker Dominic Thurbon shows how leading organisations can drive real value by focusing on people-first strategies, behavioural change, and clear governance. Dominic is a must-hear for leaders navigating AI, strategy, and organisational transformation. Read more +
Equipping Educators to Lead Change in a Disruptive World
Few professions face as much disruption, challenge, and pressure as education. Teachers, administrators, and education leaders are navigating a landscape shaped by rapid technological advancements, evolving student needs, and increasing workforce challenges. Dominic Thurbon has spent nearly two decades helping education professionals tackle these issues head-on. Read more +
From ‘managing’ change to ‘making’ change: 3 rules for making change happen
In this thought-provoking piece, Dominic Thurbon—one of Australia’s leading behaviour change and leadership keynote speakers—challenges the way we approach change. He argues that successful behaviour shifts don’t come from forcing new actions, but from understanding and removing the real barriers to change: difficulty, fear, and lack of reward. This mindset sits at the heart of Dominic Thurbon’s change and leadership keynotes for organisations navigating disruption across Australia. Read more +
Beware of Business Memes: How Dominic Thurbon Helps Organisations Cut Through the Noise
In a world overflowing with influencers, thought leaders, and self-proclaimed business gurus, it's easy to fall for catchy, oversimplified advice. From TikTok trends diagnosing ADHD to the explosion of leadership podcasts, there’s no shortage of people dishing out "fail-proof" strategies for success. If these three-step solutions worked, wouldn’t all our problems be solved by now? This is exactly where Dominic Thurbon, internationally recognised expert in behaviour change and disruption, helps organisations cut through the noise with evidence-based insight. Read more +
The AI Revolution and Behavior Change: Insights from Keynote Speaker Dominic Dominic
Dominic Thurbon, a globally recognized keynote speaker, has spent nearly two decades helping organizations navigate change in the face of external disruption. With a career spanning behaviour change consultancy, entrepreneurship, and leadership, he has built and sold two international businesses—one a behaviour change agency and the other an AI-enabled technology company specializing in mental health and student well-being. Today, as AI reshapes industries at an unprecedented pace, Dominic brings a unique perspective to the conversation, emphasizing that AI integration is fundamentally a behaviour change challenge rather than a purely technological one. Read more +
The Closer
A great conference deserves a great ending—one that leaves attendees inspired, energized, and ready to take action. Too often, the closing session is overlooked, yet research shows that the final moments of an event have a lasting impact. Dominic Thurbon’s "locknote" is a unique, dynamic, and deeply personalized closing keynote that does more than recap content. With nearly two decades of experience as a world top-10 debater, speaker, and facilitator, Dominic masterfully distills key themes in real time, ensuring the conference ends on a high note with actionable insights. This one-of-a-kind closing experience: Summarizes key themes in an engaging, insightful,… Read more +
The Human Element in AI Integration
Dom Thurbon's insights bring to the forefront the essence of AI integration as a human-centric endeavour. The successful adoption of AI technologies hinges on behavioural change and the ability to align AI capabilities with human skills and creativity—a theme central to Dominic Thurbon, behaviour change and AI leadership keynote speaker. This perspective is echoed in the observation that the most innovative companies invest significantly more in human transformation than in the technology itself. Read more +
The Human Element of AI Adoption
How to get beyond the hype and start extracting breakthrough value from AI Every company is talking about AI, but they’re not all getting value from AI. Having built and sold an AI-enabled tech company, Dominic Thurbon: behaviour change and AI leadership keynote speaker knows first hand the ones that are view AI as a people challenge first, and a technology challenge second. That’s because with technology like AI, companies don’t change, people do. For example, according to recent research from 2024, the companies getting the most value from AI are spending twice as much on people as they are… Read more +
The Truthful Leader
How businesses unlock value and drive growth through the simple act of telling the truth So much value in business lies, untapped, behind an inability or unwillingness to tell the truth. Increased innovation, improved agility and change responsiveness, deeper engagement of teams and better financial outcomes are all fuelled by telling the truth. And yet we live in a world where telling the truth increasingly seems like an optional luxury - a world dominated by 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'. In fact, despite its importance and its power, evidence suggests we are getting worse at it, not better! For example,… Read more +
Making Behaviour Change Happen
Using the science of human behaviour to unlock innovation, navigate change and improve results You have a behaviour change challenge… you just don’t know it yet!! Ever heard someone in your business say “we need to be more innovative”, “we need to respond to disruption” or “we need to do things differently”? I’m sure you have - after all, we are doing business amidst profound disruption. About 40% of CEOs say their business will cease to exist within 10 years without radical reinvention! But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how much you know about innovation, how many books you’ve… Read more +
Purpose, On Purpose
Making the most of ESG, sustainability and the purpose movement The market has never been so hot for conversations about purpose, sustainability and ESG. On one level, that’s brilliant: it could herald in a new age of sustainable business and accelerate our transition to a cleaner, more just, more equitable world (and help companies innovate and transform, along the way). On another level, it runs the very real risk of going the way that many similar conversations have gone before: more marketing and PR hype than action. The truth is, you cannot PR your way out of a problem you… Read more +
Never Waste a Crisis: Leading Through Uncertainty, Change and Disruption
COVID-19 is an example of an entirely predictable disaster. Serious, novel pathogens emerge regularly. None of this minimises or plays down the effects of the current pandemic but it does illustrate that this should be an occurrence that that precisely no one finds surprising. Not only was it bound to happen sometime, evolution tells us it is certain to happen again, too, So how do we lead our teams in times of change and massive disruption? Read more +
Earning the Trust of the Market
Based on the work we've been doing in real estate the last couple of years, I think it's safe to say it's a pretty interesting time to be in the real estate business right now. I want to provoke you to think for a moment around whether we've got our eye on the right ball that's in the air right now. Read more +
Creating Culture Through Change
I think it's safe to say that culture is one of the most durable topics in business conversations. It's one of the most studied topics and it's a topic that occupies a lot of our headspace as leaders in business as we think about what it's like to create an organization. Read more +
Adapting to Leadership
Dominic Thurbon has cracked code for making change happen. With the ultimate formula to drive innovation, and future-proof your leadership. The behavioural impact you have now is the fundamental determinant of the quality of success of your organisation. Read more +
Profits Through Purpose
Given the state of the world in which we find ourselves, it’s never been more important for companies to understand and moderate their impact on the world. 'Doing well by doing good' can be a strategy that works to drive results, not a mere cliché or buzzword - But how do we make the choice between profit and purpose? Read more +
Purpose - Aligned Leadership
Purpose is the answer to the question: “Over and above making money, why does our organization exist?” The answer to this question should be informed by the unique contribution that your organization aspires to make. Sounding good is not enough. For a purpose to be of true value to a company it must, for example, be: But although this is a simple question, many companies and leaders struggle to answer it in a way that is truly valuable. One reason for this is that many leaders confuse definition with process. Although purpose answers “why?”, simply asking this question is typically…
Transforming education
There is no change without behaviour change. Education has never been more important. In fact, it is hard to overstate just how critical it is to get education 'right', given the point at which we find ourselves. Read more +
Matter: The future of financial services in an increasingly disloyal, disrupted world
According to Havas Media’s Meaningful Brand index, consumers wouldn’t care if 75% of brands disappeared tomorrow. So, the real question is: is your brand one of the 75%, or the 25%? Read more +
Matter
Companies and people that matter have successfully become the obvious choice in the hearts and minds of their customers, their employees, and their communities. They elevate themselves by consistently finding ways to solve the most pressing needs their markets face. The result? They create more value year after year and build a sustainable, differentiated organization. In Matter, Dom Thurbon, Peter Sheahan and Julie Williamson show you how to identify the place where you can create the most value—your edge of disruption—at the intersection of old and new, where your existing profits, reach, and reputation enable you to create the markets…
Matter: How to Become the Obvious Choice
In this changing world, we have to matter. Watch Dom Thurbon share insights from his new keynote about how we can differentiate to become the obvious choice. Read more +
Your Business Is Losing Its Genius
Silos – they are a part of any large corporation – and they are the enemy of innovation & creativity. Too often, in the big telecommunications companies, you will find marketing on one floor, distribution in a different building, sales on an entirely different floor, possibly even split across different states. And what falls down the gaps? Genius ideas, a wealth of knowledge and team morale. Read more +
Collaboration Drives Innovation In Banking
Why Financial organisations that work together do better Ever come to the end of the week, looked at your in-tray and thought 'gee, I could really use an extra day this week'? Well, according to the global CEO survey, workers in knowledge organisations spend up to 25% of every day looking for information. Twenty-five per cent. So there's your extra day, right there! Read more +
Unleashing Collaboration
As a Telecommunications company you already pride yourself, on connecting people so that they can communicate more effectively, but are you tapping into the wisdom that can be found within your organisations network. In this video Dom Thurbon, discusses how to use social networks internally to increase communication, team work and the overall performance of your organisation.
If Change is Hard, You’re Doing it Wrong
Pretty much all of my clients around the world are trying to change things, whether it be finding efficiencies, changing the way managers or staff work or trying to reach customers in news ways. And pretty much all of them are finding it hard. Read more +
Achieving Disorganised Collaboration
Dominic Thurbon works with companies to help them embrace new emerging technologies and deal with the rapidly changing future of the work place. With web 2.0 continually progressing, the need to collaborate across traditional business units to achieve collective outcomes has never been greater. In Dominic’s speaking demo you will get the sense of how this can achieved through the implementation of silos and disorganised collaboration. Read more +
Are People Dysfunctional Or Just Differently Functional?
I had a great conversation with Ken Wallace on the weekend, who's not only a cracking screenwriter but also has the pleasure of being my brother-in-law. He has recently had his second child, and was saying how he thinks in general people consider the way that they parent, 'normal'. Everyone else does it incorrectly or abnormally. That is, you become your own benchmark for what is 'normal'. Everything else is a bit wacky or, often, 'dysfunctional'. There is such wisdom in this – it is not just parenting, it's everything. We become our own benchmark for what 'normal' all the… Read more +
'To Be Honest': Dominic Thurbon's New Book on Why Truth is Our Greatest Asset
Dominic Thurbon's upcoming book ‘To Be Honest’ explores how misinformation has evolved in the age of AI and algorithmic media, and why traditional approaches to transparency often fall short. And more importantly, it provides everyone who cares about the truth a practical toolkit to restore organisations’ relationship with facts. Dom unpacks why we lie, why it doesn't work, and what truthful leadership actually looks like in practice.
Purpose - Aligned Leadership
Purpose is the answer to the question: “Over and above making money, why does our organization exist?” The answer to this question should be informed by the unique contribution that your organization aspires to make. Sounding good is not enough. For a purpose to be of true value to a company it must, for example, be: But although this is a simple question, many companies and leaders struggle to answer it in a way that is truly valuable. One reason for this is that many leaders confuse definition with process. Although purpose answers “why?”, simply asking this question is typically not sufficient to generate a useful answer.
A good answer must be more than a nice sounding platitude, or an abstract goal. It should exist as a filter for all organizational decisions and practices; and should be embedded into the way that you and your employees do business every day. If not, you may have a marketing slogan that you call ‘your purpose,’ but it won’t contribute any value to your organization beyond some nice copy
Matter
Companies and people that matter have successfully become the obvious choice in the hearts and minds of their customers, their employees, and their communities. They elevate themselves by consistently finding ways to solve the most pressing needs their markets face. The result? They create more value year after year and build a sustainable, differentiated organization.
In Matter, Dom Thurbon, Peter Sheahan and Julie Williamson show you how to identify the place where you can create the most value—your edge of disruption—at the intersection of old and new, where your existing profits, reach, and reputation enable you to create the markets of the future. This is the place where the most important problems are solved and where the fewest people can solve them. Your edge of disruption is where your opportunity to matter is found.
