The Ability to Embrace and Create Change

Innovation is constant. And our long-term success is purely a function of how well we deal with it. Sterling's speaking and stories give audiences around the world the inspiration, tools and ability to not just embrace change, but to become people that actually create it. It has reliably left hundreds of founders, investors, retailers, brands and fortune 500 companies working towards a new future that looks entirely new and not just a slightly better version of the past. 

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SPEAKING

Sterling delivers impactful keynotes across the world from New York to Singapore making innovation both possible and accessible. Attendees are left with the ability to create change and the inspiration to make it real in their businesses and lives. 

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MASTERCLASS

Sterling's DeltaV Method is a masterclass on how to create change and open next-level thinking through story. Stand-alone or as a follow-up to his keynote, they are relied upon by businesses of all sizes and customized to produce breakthrough results.

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EVENTS

Sterling participates and hosts innovation-based events all over the world. Startups creating new futures for us to live into often participate and join the events. Join us in the movement of creating something entirely new!

Keynotes with Impact. Delivered by Sterling.

Sterling speaks around the world on innovation, the future of commerce and how to create personal and business change. He has hosted, moderated, and keynoted countless events including for client such as...

“Sterling combines powerful storytelling with meaningful information and tools leaving listeners excited and empowered to take action. He’s one of only a few speakers I’ve seen that actually makes a real difference. We’ll definitely have him back!”
— Michael Mikyska, Retail Managing Director, Innerworkings, Inc.
“Over my many years running events around the world, few if any of my 2,000+ speakers delivered as remarkable a performance as Sterling did at Seamless Asia 2017.”
— Oliver Arscott, Director, Terrapinn
“Thank you Sterling for a breath taking speech on Innovation!! Your mindset and delivery is epic and amazing and I am ever so grateful for your presentation at City Summit! Riveting!!”
— Ryan Long, Founder, City Summit & City Gala

Keynote Topics

When I show up to speak, I show up to deliver value to an audience. To give my all and really make a difference for attendees and make the conference director look like a rockstar for bringing me in. Specifics are customized to the audience for the most impactful experience possible and include technologies and demonstrations of 4th industrial revolution technologies as it forwards the intention. 

 

The Innovation Puzzle: Examine the puzzle of innovation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most businesses don't: people aren’t built for change.

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Sterling’s family grocery store went from a local market on to become the benchmark of innovation in the industry as the culture transformed to not just embrace change, but to actually cause it. Recognizing in a traditionally human-centric retail industry, where fear of change can be high and morale low, Sterling created an atmosphere of freedom to innovate with concrete methodology which not only encouraged everyday people to embrace change by involving them in the process, he ignited their spirit to actually become agents of change and facilitators of the innovation process to ignite the spirit in others.This moving talk is based on the lessons learned as Sterling worked to create a culture free to innovate first at his family’s store and then with leading companies around the world. Sterling learned along the way that before you can embrace change, you have to give up the status quo and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

 

Full “Creating the Future of Commerce” Keynote. Akolade Retail Fulfilment Summit. Melbourne, Australia. March, 2018.

Creating the Future of Commerce: In a culture of consumerism and technology, how did we get here and the surprising place we’re headed in the future to fulfill on our wants and needs.

Retail used to be different when Sterling was growing up in his family’s supermarket — it was all about customers and all about community. Walmart, Amazon and others broke that traditional mold making it all about scale, mass and technology.  With venture dollars and startups flooding the market, Sterling first worked in his family’s store and now across the global retail industry to shape how emerging technologies such as robots, drones, artificial intelligence and countless other technologies will transform how people fulfill on their wants and needs. For those in retail or interested in retail, this is a hands on roadmap of what technologies will be part of the future, who is using them already, and how to inspire a culture that that embraces change. His leadership and vision enabled retailers and their teams to step past the hype of traditional retail being dead to empower them to use technology to unify experiences and redefine what retail is. 

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Great Leaders Inspire Innovation (And Big Business Kills it): People aren’t built for change, they’re built for survival. In today’s fast-paced world, change is necessary and learning how to first accept it and get out ahead of it is the only competitive advantage.

The only constant is change. Sterling learned that first hand as he worked with retailers and brands to embrace the technologies of the 4th industrial revolution including robots, IoT and Artificial Intelligence. At the same time it required him and the companies he worked with to think differently to truly embrace technology coming together with humanity to unlock something new. And to do that, it was a special kind of skill to let go of everything we think we already know to discover what’s possible. He shows how inside of a leadership style that embraces change, transformational performance is possible and proven. Sterling shows audiences, by example, how to develop innovation thinking to gain perspective, clarity and take profits to the next level inside the 4th Industrial Revolution where anything is possible. 

Representation

Sterling Hawkins has become a master of innovation through massive changes and obstacles he has overcome in his own life. From flat broke to selling the first company he founded in 2004, from a broken family business to a successful one, and from fear of public speaking to keynoting at conferences around the world, Sterling’s story is a perfect example of how anyone can take any situation and create anything from it.  

As a business leader, entrepreneur investor and futurist, Sterling is an internationally renowned keynote speaker. As a 5th generation retailer and still very active in retail innovation, he has worked with the likes of Stanford, Cornell and the University of Texas to create the future of commerce, and today evaluates over 1,000 innovative technologies annually which are looking to dynamically transform retail and how people fulfill on their wants and needs. He has worked with countless startups, investment groups, retailers, brands and Fortune 500 companies including P&G, Mitsubishi, Zebra Technologies, Stater Bros. and more to ignite innovation and innovation thinking inside their organizations. 

Sterling has been seen in Inc. Magazine, The New York Times, ABC Money, AlleyWatch, Yahoo Finance, Forbes and other major media outlets. Living at the intersection of in-store, online and the 4th Industrial Revolution, Sterling is actively shaping the future of commerce by helping others create and respond to innovation in a way that betters businesses, communities and the human condition.

Saturday, May 25th! My talk is about the importance (necessity) of discomfort for innovation. I used to love MacGyver when I was a kid -- there was no obstacle he couldn’t overcome. Just when you thought it was over in an episode — when he was pushing up against a near death experience — it was then that he’d suddenly be able to stop a train with a paperclip + chewing gum. Or dodge a bullet with a razor blade + string. He innovates or dies. He never died. It’s that kind discomfort that’s necessary for innovation. And we all have access to it.
Alignment of purpose ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I was just at the UNFCCC workshops in Korea — an incredible assembly of people of all difference backgrounds from all over the world coming together to make a difference. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It has been very moving how a conversation like this transcends any boundaries for a greater good. There’s not always agreement. It’s not all sunshine and roses, but the commitment of people is for a better world. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Understanding this shared commitment allows for meaningful dialogue about the problems and potential solutions with far more perspectives than a single person, company of country could arrive at singularly. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Now... if we can move some of these ideas into action we’ll be all set ;)
Seoul ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Such a beautiful city of almost 10M people. Believe it or not, it’s ranked as the fourth largest metropolitan economy in the world and is larger than both London and Paris. Love what has been created here amidst hardship, political tensions and war.
Lets give it up for the Destination Experience: Visionaries’ Summit Innovation Workshop Class! Had a blast spending the day with you all and creating together!
Epic conference with @mydestinationexperience They’ve brought together everyone from CEOs of public companies to global thought leaders and investors to open up opportunity and innovation with Jamaica 🇯🇲. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And it’s super smart — bringing different people together inside a conversation for what’s possible opens a new perspective for everyone. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It’s only natural that with new perspectives, we’ll end up taking some new actions. And that’s how change happens.
And it’s a successful kickoff to #1to1monaco! Thank you for having me — it was a blast being with you guys!
Necessity. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ There’s something very special about the Sahara. It’s in the desolate space of nothing but sand that space opens for something new. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Change isn’t comfortable. We tend to like (or maybe a better word is accept) the current status quo of our business and our lives. We tend to think it’s going to end up better, but the hard truth of it is: it has already ended up. We’re here. And unless something dramatic happens or we do something dramatic, this is how it’s going to be. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We only transform out of necessity — generated from within or delivered from the outside. When we don’t give ourselves a choice. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ That’s the space the desert gives. That’s why we wanted to do workshops here. In the space of sandy nothingness and hard necessity makes available exponential growth in our thinking: how we think of our business, ourselves and even our purpose. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Then we bring that expansion back to our families. Our businesses. And our lives. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Plato said, necessity is the mother of invention. If we want to innovate (create, transform), we have to need it.
Just landed in Monaco 🇲🇨 and fired up for the comexposium conference! We’re talking about the future of commerce. But it’s not about the technology. It’s about the people. The culture. The experience. We want to use technology to support our humanity. Not the other way around. If we can use these tools of the future to enable us to be more human, more connected — I think we’re doing our job.
What will the future look like? We don’t know. But the future of work and business will look very different from what we see today. Globally, many fortune 500s (and everyone else) are challenged in deciding how to navigate the unknown as the world is already starting to talk about humans working alongside robots (already becoming a reality in some markets). The single most important skill set of the future: developing the capacity to deal with and create change. Companies everywhere can prepare for transformation and build cultures to truly innovate. Join us in Jamaica early April to unpack how to develop that culture and ourselves in the future of commerce!
What #stories can you tell? The Atlas Mountains are the gateway to the Sahara desert, and that was exactly where we were headed. The climb (by car) was through one of the very few passes connecting N and S Morocco. Some paved. Some dirt. Countless curves. As we reached the top of the drive, some 2,000 meters up. There was a very quaint women’s center, where local women collect and process some of the local plants. It was exactly here, at the top of it all, at a women’s center, I was handed an opportunity: Maybe food poisoning. Maybe motion sickness. Maybe altitude. Whatever it was, it was awful. (this picture was before :) Stop after stop we made. And every one I thought, how great is this?! I’m at one of the highest drivable points in Morocco and here I am sick as can be. Why? Because I don’t want boring. I don’t want a life given by “making it” or “getting by”. Or even how it’s supposed to be. I want a life that has stories. That has meaning. That has memories I can never forget. Not that I wished to be sick. But that’s what came — and I’ll take it — and do my best to make the most of it. Every time. What stories can you tell? If they make a movie about your life, what are the stories they’re going to tell?! We’re on to the Western Sahara, just west of Algeria, for the next story. And yes, I’m feeling better :)
A step back from the unknown? I do love pushing the edge with the adventure workshops (desert trekking coming soon!) but it can’t be only about expansion or pushing into the unknown. We can step back to understand, integrate, and assimilate that growth into who we are. And this step is just as important. The @fsMarrakesh have been just incredible hosts. The culture, food, pool, spa (I’m a sucker for a good massage :) have been off the charts amazing. And such a great place to relax for a few days before the next adventure. @fourseasons @fsmarrakech @luxuryworldtraveler
Crossing into what we don’t know. It was in the middle of the Straight of Gibraltar en route to Africa. After hours tied up in customs, changed plans and uncertainty, it struck me newly: at any point... there are an unlimited number of things that can happen. It’s total chaos. Anything can happen at any moment. It’s usually only when things don’t go how we expect them to go can we actually get a glimpse of it. It’s easier to construct a reality based on things that we know and expect. Knowing makes us feel good, gives us some security. But if we’re stuck in it, it can also trap us. Only by stepping into the unknown (I call it the innovation gap in my talks) can we grow.
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