Available to book
Chris Hirst
Effective Leadership
Change Management
Company Culture
Unlock high performance with Chris Hirst, leadership and culture speaker. Chris works with executive teams to build accountability, make decisions under pressure, and lead through complexity, drawing on his experience as Global CEO of a 10,000+ person organisation and as a Business Book of the Year author.
Business Leader
Author
Professional Development
Visionary
Thought Leader
CEO
Podcast
Executive
Chris Hirst is the former Global CEO of Havas Creative Group and a practising Fractional Chair and Non-Executive Director, working with CEOs navigating growth, transformation, and acquisition.
In 2010, he became CEO of Grey London and turned round what was seen as an unfixable agency, growing revenue from $20 million to $55 million and margins from single digits to over 24%, and winning IPA Agency of the Year in 2014. He went on to lead Havas Creative Group globally, overseeing more than 100 agencies and a workforce exceeding 10,000 people.
Chris is a hands-on practitioner, not a theorist, and continues to chair businesses today. Direct, funny, and memorable, he says what others won't. His books, including No Bullsh\*t Leadership (Business Book of the Year, 2020), No Bullsh\*t Change, and Indispensable, have sold more than 100,000 copies and been translated into seven languages.
Audiences leave understanding Chris's core belief that culture is not bigger than the leader, it is the leader: the environment they create to enable their teams to outperform. He shows how leaders can build accountability, execute under pressure, and turn culture into a genuine driver of performance rather than an afterthought.
Book Chris for a direct, no-nonsense take on leadership, culture, and execution that actually works.
Topics, sessions and talks
Chris Hirst, author of the bestselling No Bullsh*t Leadership, cuts through the noise to deliver a refreshingly honest take on what modern leadership really looks like. Drawing from his award-winning book, Chris argues that leadership is difficult but not complicated. Attendees will walk away understanding how to strip back the complexity and harness the practical, career-transforming power of simply getting stuff done.
Chris Hirst draws on over a decade of leading successful change programmes worldwide to explore how leaders and organisations can turn constant change into opportunity. Attendees will learn proven strategies for driving team, organisational, and cultural transformation in today's fast-moving environment.
Chris Hirst explores one of the most misunderstood forces shaping organisations of every size: culture. Despite being the defining experience for people at work, culture is frequently overlooked by leaders who underestimate its power. Chris reveals why the ability to change, nurture and sustain a world-class culture is a leader's greatest superpower. Attendees will learn the repeatable secrets behind building exceptional workplace culture that drives lasting organisational success.
Most organisations have no shortage of ideas. What they lack is the discipline and culture to execute them. Drawing on his time as a Chair and Global CEO, and on inspiration from IBM and the statesman Colin Powell, Chris dismantles the myth that waiting for the right conditions leads to better outcomes. He makes the case for a simple formula - simplify, decide, execute, move fast - and shows how culture, understanding fear, and even better-run meetings can transform an organisation from one that talks a good game to one that consistently wins.
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frequently asked questions
Something we've not covered here?
Email chris.hirst@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Chris's availability and fees. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and a bit about your audience.
Chris Hirst structures his sessions around frameworks drawn directly from his No Bullsh*t Leadership book series, translating case material from his tenure as Global CEO of Havas Creative Group into repeatable, practitioner-tested models for leadership, change, and culture.
Chris Hirst speaks on practical leadership, change management, and organisational culture. He is the former Global CEO of Havas Creative Group, where he led over 100 agencies and more than 10,000 people, and his book No Bullsh*t Leadership won Business Book of the Year in 2020.
No. PepTalk adds no booking fee, so you pay the speaker's fee and nothing beyond it. The service, from shortlist through to contracts and event-day logistics, is included. For repeat or multi-event bookings, PepTalk can agree preferential rates with your procurement team.
Share your event date, audience, format, objectives and budget, and PepTalk sends a hand-picked shortlist within 24 hours. Each suggestion comes with a profile, a fee and a recommendation on the strongest fit. Once you choose, PepTalk handles contracts, travel and logistics through to event day.
The typical fee range is the speaker's standard in-person fee in their home market, shown in their local currency. It moves with format, location, date and session length: virtual sessions and shorter slots usually cost less, while international travel and peak dates cost more. Send your brief to PepTalk and the team will confirm the exact fee in your currency.
Not all of them, and it makes no difference to your booking. PepTalk's network of 15,000+ speakers covers talent the team works with directly alongside speakers represented by agents and agencies worldwide. PepTalk approaches the speaker, negotiates the fee and handles contracting either way.
Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
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