16Jun2022
“My Role Is to Make Innovation Easier, Creativity Tangible And the Process Fun” – Duncan Wardle
by: Nordic Business Forum
Duncan Wardle is the winner of our 2022 Speaker Contest. He is also the former Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney who with his team helped Imagineering, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney Parks to innovate, creating magical new storylines and experiences.
Duncan will give a keynote at Nordic Business Forum 2022 in September, so we asked him a few of questions about his upcoming presentation and the event theme of future-focused leadership.
Nordic Business Forum: Can you give us a teaser of what to expect from your Nordic Business Forum 2022 presentation?
Duncan Wardle: As Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney I found that most adults don’t believe they are Creative and they’ve given up. Many people also find innovation intimidating and inaccessible. So, my role is to make innovation easier, creativity tangible and the process fun, so we can equip ourselves and our teams with a set of tools they choose when we’re not around. It is all about Embedding a Culture of Innovation into everyone’s DNA.
NBF: The theme of the event is Future-Focused Leadership. What does that mean to you?
DW: With Artificial Intelligence predicted to eliminate between 20-30% of the current roles we perform today by 2032, we must now equip our teams for jobs that don’t exist yet, allowing them to get out of their own “River of Thinking” (their own experience and expertise) and Think Different!
NBF: What would you highlight as the most important thing(s) for leaders to focus on in the future?
DW: If you ask the Artificial Intelligence experts what skill sets they believe will be the most important of the next decade, they will tell you “the ones that will be the hardest to program.” What would those be? They will tell you, “The ones that make us inherently human!” And I will be sharing those during my talk. We must also challenge the paradigm of Profit over Purpose, because here comes Generation Z, who care far more about Purpose than Profit.
At Nordic Business Forum 2022, Duncan will share his best insights on how to embed creativity in your organization culture. To see Duncan live in September, join the NBF 2022 Helsinki event.
