BOOK PAUL POLMAN FOR YOUR NEXT EVENT
THROUGH ASSEMBLEE SPEAKERS

SPEAKING THEMES PAUL POLMAN

1. Leading Through Change: Building What Comes Next
What does good leadership look like when there are fewer certainties? Paul looks at how leaders can respond to geopolitical uncertainty, technological disruption and growing short-term pressures without allowing them to become an excuse for inaction. Drawing on his own experience at Unilever and the work he does with business leaders today, he looks at what it takes to face reality, keep investing and adapting, and build the capabilities, culture and trust organisations will need for the future.

2. Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take
Paul Polman asks two questions that go to the heart of Net Positive leadership: are you profiting from solving the world’s problems or creating them? And is the world better because your business exists? Using his experience transforming Unilever and his work with companies since, Paul looks at what happens when purpose and responsibility move from the sustainability department into the way a business actually operates: its strategy, investment, innovation, people and partnerships. His argument is ultimately a business one: companies are stronger when they create value for the people and systems on which their own success depends.

3. Deliver Today. Build Tomorrow
Every leader faces the same tension: delivering results now while investing in things whose full value may not be visible for years. Drawing on his experience as both a CFO and CEO, Paul looks at the difference between delivering the quarter and managing for it. He explores what short-term pressure can do to decisions around investment, innovation, people and sustainability, and how leaders can protect the capabilities and relationships that create value over time. The message isn’t that short-term performance matters less. Businesses have to perform. The challenge is delivering today without sacrificing the foundations of tomorrow.

4. From Individual Leadership to Systems Change
Many of the biggest challenges facing business cannot be solved by one company acting alone. Paul draws on his experience bringing together businesses, governments, investors and civil society to look at where individual leadership ends and collective action becomes necessary. He explores how companies can work with others, including competitors, to address shared barriers, change incentives and create the conditions for progress at scale. For Paul, collaboration is not separate from running a successful business. Increasingly, it is part of how businesses get things done.

ABOUT PAUL POLMAN’S KEYNOTES
Paul Polman speaks about how businesses and their leaders can succeed for the long term, particularly at a time when many of the assumptions they have relied on are changing.

As CEO of Unilever, Paul led the company through a major transformation while putting long-term value creation, purpose and sustainability at the heart of the business. Today, he works with CEOs, investors and organisations around the world on many of the same questions: how to perform in the short term without sacrificing the future, how to build trust and resilience, and how business can help solve some of the problems on which its own success ultimately depends.

Paul’s talks are grounded in his own experience and adapted to the audience in front of him. Depending on the organisation, that might mean starting with growth, culture, capital allocation, technology, sustainability or the challenges facing a particular industry.

He doesn’t offer easy answers. He challenges leaders to think about the choices that are actually within their control, the value their organisation creates for others, and what they need to do differently now to build a stronger business for the future.

Contact Assemblee Speakers for more information about inviting Paul Polman as keynote speaker at your event.