Keynotes, Workshops & Roundtables

Innovation Workshops & Keynotes

Innovation workshops, keynotes and curated roundtables that help your team build new capability before they need it, led by Aidan McCullen, 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award winner and author of Undisruptable.

How do you stop a high-performing team getting stuck in a rut? How do you help people spot the opportunities and threats that sneak up on even the most successful organisations? These innovation workshops were built to answer exactly those questions, because change is no longer something you can wait out.

Why these innovation workshops work

Roughly 75% of transformation efforts fail, and they fail for the same reasons most New Year’s resolutions fail: change is hard, and you cannot change what people do until you change how people think. So every session is designed around the neuroscience of learning, not slideware.

The result is practical and human. Teams leave with a shared language for innovation, a healthier relationship with resistance and failure, and a method for reinventing the business before the market forces their hand. As one client put it, the work gives leaders the room to step back and think strategically again.

Keynotes

1. The Permanent Reinvention Mindset

Staying relevant means building new capability before it becomes urgent. In this visual, story-rich keynote, Aidan explores why people resist change, why transformation gets messy in the middle, and how past success creates the blind spots that catch organisations off guard. He also shows how the “old” and the “new” must work together, because the established business funds and enables the future while the emerging business creates the next wave of growth. Based on Undisruptable.

2. The Change Tsunami

Change is no longer arriving in waves; it is arriving like a tsunami. This keynote shows how exponential technologies, shifting customer expectations and accelerating disruption compress decision cycles and overwhelm traditional ways of working. Aidan explains why organisations get stuck in reactive mode, how past success becomes a dangerous blind spot, and what it takes to respond with clarity rather than panic.

3. Build Before You Need: Personal & Organisational Capability

Most people wait for the warning light — burnout, disruption, decline — before they change, and by then it is often too late. This keynote connects the logic of personal health (train before injury, recover before breakdown) with organisational reinvention: investing early in skills, culture and capability. A grounded talk about staying strong, relevant and ready, both personally and professionally.

The Permanent Reinvention Mindset workshop

The flagship workshop turns the keynote into hands-on practice. It is thoroughly engaging, highly visual and built for an age of Zoom fatigue, with a digital artist supporting the sessions for maximum visual impact. Across the programme, teams work through:

• Mindset mastery — the psychology behind mindset, and how to shift from a fixed to a growth mindset.
• Effective communication — the role of communication in fostering innovation, and how to break down the barriers that block it.
• Biases and innovation — recognising the biases that impede creative thinking, and embracing neurodiversity as a catalyst for breakthrough ideas.
• Navigating resistance — treating resistance as a natural part of change, and reframing fear as a milestone rather than a millstone.
• Learning from mistakes — why mistakes are integral to innovation, and how to treat failure as a first attempt in learning.
• Disruption and the success trap — how disruption affects even the best companies, and how to avoid the trap that success sets.
• Proactive reinvention — building strategies to reinvent yourself and your organisation before it becomes a necessity.
• Mapping change — a simple framework for mapping change, learning, products and services, with real case studies from Fujifilm to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Curated roundtables

Beyond keynotes and large workshops, Aidan designs and facilitates curated roundtables for leadership teams and peer groups. These are small, structured sessions where a carefully chosen group works through real strategic questions together, learning as much from each other as from the facilitator.

Each roundtable draws on proven frameworks, including Jobs to Be Done, strategic “hunting zones” for deciding where to play, and an Amazon-style working-backwards vision exercise. The format suits executive teams setting direction, innovation cohorts, and cross-industry peer groups. Aidan has delivered this work with Enterprise Ireland, the Irish state agency for enterprise development, supporting companies to build innovation capability and lead through change.

A four-step path to embedding innovation

For organisations that want lasting change rather than a one-off event, the work follows a “splash and ripple” model that keeps momentum alive long after the first session.

• Step 1 — Kick-off keynote. A “splash” that puts innovation on the agenda for the whole organisation, in person or from The Innovation Show studio.
• Step 2 — Core team workshops. An “army of the willing” becomes your change champions, building empathy for resistance and workshopping real initiatives.
• Step 3 — Select group workshops and roundtables. The ripple extends to wider teams, introducing a company-wide common language for innovation while doubling as team-building.
• Step 4 — Keeping innovation alive. Curated episodes of The Innovation Show for your LMS, regular check-ins, and guidance for the CEO on prioritising innovation through behaviours rather than incentives.

Formats and who it is for

Sessions flex to your audience and your calendar:

• Keynotes of 45–60 minutes, virtual or in person
• Interactive workshops of 2–3 hours, or multi-day programmes for core teams
• Curated roundtables for leadership teams and peer groups
• Specially curated content for learning and development platforms
• Chief Innovation Officer and C-suite executive coaching

The work suits leadership teams, innovation and L&D functions, and any group facing disruption that wants to think and act differently. Sessions can also set the tone for the rest of a strategy day.

About Aidan McCullen

Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award winner, recognised for his contribution to global innovation practice. The Innovation Show is the only podcast ever to receive a Thinkers50 award, and Aidan is only the second Irish person, after Charles Handy, to be honoured.

He works as a change consultant and executive coach, and his perspective is grounded in lived experience. After a decade-long professional rugby career with Leinster, Toulouse and Ireland, he moved into the world of innovation, bringing the discipline of elite sport to the realities of organisational change. He lectures on Emerging Technology Trends at Trinity College Dublin, has designed award-winning content with SAP, and serves as a board director for National Broadband Ireland. Learn more about Aidan.

What clients say

This course is a masterclass in deep learning, immersing participants in unlocking creativity and innovation. I cannot recommend it enough for teams that need propulsion and intellectual nourishment. Aiden Connolly, Head of Innovation & Special Projects, Toyota & Lexus

Trusted by leading organisations

• PayPal
• Mastercard
• Salesforce
• SAP
• Mars
• Airbus
• Toyota
• Epic Games
• Maersk
• Irish Distillers (Pernod Ricard)
• Agilent Technologies
• FREE NOW
• Enterprise Ireland

Frequently asked questions

What innovation workshops does Aidan McCullen offer?

Keynotes, interactive workshops and curated roundtables on disruption, change and permanent reinvention. The core programme, The Permanent Reinvention Mindset, runs as a 45–60 minute keynote or a 2–3 hour workshop, virtually or in person.

What is a curated roundtable?

A small, facilitated session where a chosen group of leaders or peers works through real strategic questions together, using frameworks such as Jobs to Be Done, strategic hunting zones and a working-backwards vision exercise. Aidan has run this format with leadership teams and with Enterprise Ireland.

Are the sessions virtual or in person?

Both. Sessions are delivered virtually from a professional studio or in person worldwide, from a single keynote to multi-day programmes.

Which companies has Aidan worked with?

Clients include PayPal, Mastercard, Salesforce, SAP, Mars, Airbus, Toyota, Epic Games, Maersk, Irish Distillers (Pernod Ricard), Agilent Technologies, FREE NOW and Enterprise Ireland.

How do I book a keynote, workshop or roundtable?

Email admin@theinnovationshow.io or use the contact page to discuss dates, format and goals.