David Rowan
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Editor-at-large of Wired magazine
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Author of Non-Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas From The World’s Smartest Minds
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Has also written for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times

David Rowan, founding Editor-in-chief of WIRED’s UK edition (2008-17), is the author of Non-Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas from the World’s Smartest Minds (Transworld, 2019), a global quest for bold corporate innovation in the face of technology-led disruption.
David continuously investigates the companies and entrepreneurs changing our world, and has spent time with the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Didi, Spotify, Xiaomi, Nest, Twitter and countless other ambitious startups from Tel Aviv to Shenzhen. His keynote talks have included events for banks, governments and Fortune 100 companies, and stage interviews have ranged from will.i.am to James Murdoch and David Cameron.
David has been a technology columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times. He's an early-stage investor in 50 tech companies and founder of a non-profit taking amazing people for weekend adventures in the world’s most extraordinary locations. And he is still searching for the future.
David Rowan is an informative, dynamic and charismatic keynote speaker, covering a vast array of topics. From the new rules of business in a mobile-internet age to the future of healthcare and luxury brands; from technology mega-trends to creating cultures of innovation in organisations.
David brings his extensive experience as a newspaper and magazine editor, and television broadcaster, to communicating complex trends in clear and accessible ways that allow wide audiences to reach that “aha” moment of understanding.
A superb storyteller, his speeches have helped a wide variety businesses comprehend these changes in a way that allows them to turn them to their advantage.
Keynote presentation themes and topics include:
- Lessons from my global quest for non-bullshit innovation
- How to create a culture of innovation
- How artificial intelligence and automation can boost your business
- The new rules of business
- How to profit from digital disruption
- What start-ups can teach your business
- How emerging technologies will impact financial services / recruitment / real estate / healthcare / agriculture / travel, etc
- Why the world will never move this slowly again
- The future of the workplace
- Ten technologies shaping our future
- Ten lessons I’ve learned from the world’s fastest innovators
- New business models that are redefining industries
- The future of the customer experience
David Rowan is also experienced at moderating, chairing and interviewing at events, including moderating for the World Economic Forum, the UK Government's G8 Innovation Conference and WIRED’s conferences.
I wanted to thank you for your time to moderate the G8 Innovation Conference on 14 June. You set the tone for the day perfectly, engaging the audience and steering the presenters through a very full agenda. The feedback from the day has been overwhelmingly positive, which is largely due to your dynamism, good humour and professionalism. The team here and I are extremely grateful for the part you played in making the day a success and helping to put innovation on the G8 agenda.
I wanted to thank you again for helping us secure David Rowan for the event – I have had amazing feedback on his presentation from our attendees and from my colleagues who attended. He really was a perfect fit for our audience and I think his talk was incredibly interesting and relevant for the talent space.
David Rowan was an excellent moderator, engaging with all the speakers. We appreciate that we changed the brief at the last minute and we are grateful to David for being so accommodating to your needs
David did well to energise the room, and provided some excellent anecdotes about the industry
Thank you so much for an excellent session. You left the team in no doubt about the risks of disruptive factors and how they can impact any industry. Ours more than any is wide open here. Totally the right way to end the conference.
Thank you for being such an amazing moderator during the recent Bizspark European Summit. It was an amazing event – best ever summit in my view – and your contribution was a tremendous factor in this. Thank you.
We just wanted to say an enormous thank you for providing such an interesting and inspirational session on future technical trends for our Digital Power Week. We've had terrific feedback from staff across the business who said they learnt so much, found you fascinating to listen to and came away really excited by the future possibilities with digital.
Your session caused quite a stir so we are including the interview in the material we are circulating to all of our delegates. Thanks for your insights and attendance - I really enjoyed it and hope we cross paths again in the future.
I know that everyone was really inspired by the examples and your own insights and ideas - it all fitted beautifully into the theme of the day, so thank you for all of that. A privilege to have you along at our day.
How to book David Rowan for your event
To book David Rowan, please submit an online enquiry to booking.agent@nmp.co.uk or contact one of our booking agents on +44 (0)20 3822 0003.

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