Available to book
Charles Leadbeater
Charles Leadbeater helps organisations turn new ideas into lasting change. An innovation, creativity, and systems change speaker, Charles co-founded System Shift UK, advised Tony Blair, and wrote the bestsellers Living on Thin Air and We-Think.
Charles Leadbeater is one of the UK's leading authorities on innovation, and he's spent three decades working out how new ideas grow into systems that change how people live and work.
Charles began as a journalist, spending ten years at the Financial Times as industrial editor and Tokyo bureau chief before moving to The Independent, where he helped Helen Fielding devise Bridget Jones's Diary. He went on to advise Tony Blair and the 10 Downing Street Policy Unit, and wrote the bestsellers Living on Thin Air and We-Think, translated into more than 20 languages.
He's advised the BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, the European Commission, and the government of Shanghai, and has worked in more than 30 countries. He wrote the first British report on social entrepreneurship, co-founded the public service design agency Participle, and was founding chair of Apps for Good. Today he's co-founder and executive director of System Shift UK, helping foundations, innovators, and policymakers build better systems for the common good.
Charles gives audiences a practical anatomy of breakthrough innovation, showing how the biggest changes come from movements that combine new technology, organisation, and culture. Organisations come away knowing how to spot where power sits in a system, how to build a coalition that'll carry an idea, and how to move from the system as it is to the system as it could be.
His TED talks have been watched more than four million times. Book Charles when your event needs an evidence-led account of how big change happens.
Topics, sessions and talks
Charles Leadbeater draws on his work with governments, foundations, and companies in more than 30 countries to show how creative ideas become change that lasts. Using his anatomy of breakthrough innovation, from the modern restaurant to the contraceptive pill, Charles explains why the biggest breakthroughs come from movements that combine new thinking with technology, organisation, and culture. Teams leave with a clearer sense of where their own ideas could go and what it'll take to get them there.
Charles Leadbeater pairs three decades advising governments, including 10 Downing Street, with current work at System Shift UK helping foundations and policymakers redesign systems. That mix of policy experience and live practice gives audiences innovation thinking that's already been tested outside the conference room.
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frequently asked questions
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Charles Leadbeater builds his talks around a practical anatomy of breakthrough innovation, tracing how ideas from the modern restaurant to the contraceptive pill grew into movements that changed millions of lives.
Charles Leadbeater specialises in innovation, creativity, and systems change, including how breakthrough ideas grow into movements that reshape public services, education, and business. He's a former adviser to Tony Blair and the 10 Downing Street Policy Unit, author of the bestsellers Living on Thin Air and We-Think, and co-founder of System Shift UK.
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