Visionary approach
to employee-centric management.

Highlights

Known around the globe for his innovative, employee-centric management style, Ricardo Semler is a true visionary who advises businesses on how they can significantly improve performance by restructuring relationships with their people.

His presentations invariably spark creative and productive thinking about how to lead and manage.

Ricardo Semler is president of Semco S/A, based in Brazil, and the author of two books: Maverick and The Seven-Day Weekend. Maverick has been published in 16 languages and sold over one million copies.

Ricardo has been profiled in more than 200 magazines and newspapers, including a special edition of Time highlighting future world leaders. He was named one of the "Global Leaders of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Semco’s Success

Ricardo admits that his own company’s management agreements are not for everyone (managers determine their salaries, staff choose their bosses), but it is a success.

His Brazilian-based firm’s revenues have grown from $35 million to $160 million in the past six years, despite severe economic conditions.

And the phenomenal success of his book Maverick demonstrates an eager interest in workable alternatives to conventional management wisdom. Hundreds of executives from other companies have visited Ricardo’s firm to study his success.

The Message

Ricardo urges audiences to take a realistic look at what works, what’s possible, and what makes sense in today’s world, given our technologies, the rapid pace of change and the increasing failure of current practice to adapt. Technology that was supposed to make life easier—laptops, cell phones, e-mail, pagers—has stolen our free time instead and destroyed the traditional nine-to-five workday. Why, for instance, haven’t we learned to go golfing on Monday morning when we’ve learned to take our work home on Friday night?

For bold innovators, Ricardo proposes a way to run a workplace that leads to greater productivity and greater flexibility for managers and employees alike. And for business leaders everywhere, he offers fresh alternatives to business as usual that inspire creative solutions to modern management problems.

Credentials

• President, Semco S/A
• Named Brazil’s "Business Leader of the Year" twice
• Named "Latin American Businessman of the Year" by America Economia (The Wall Street Journal’s Spanish language magazine)
• Vice President, Federation of Industries of Brazil
• Board member, SOS Atlantic Forest, Brazil’s foremost environmental defense organization
• Semco was selected by CIO magazine as the only Latin American company among the most successfully reengineered companies in the world, and the
• BBC included the company in its "Reengineering The Business" series. Harvard Business School alumnus