Alex Barker
Alex Barker is anauthor, business consultant, coach and learning designer. She leadsBe More Pirate: a book turned global movement that supports peopleand organisations to challenge the status quo and be bolder andbraver in their thinking. She has designed and delivered workshopsand training programmes for global businesses such as Netflix,Salesforce, Vodafone and Google.
Her first book Howto Be More Pirate, co-authored with social entrepreneur Sam Conniff,captures case studies from across the Be More Pirate network, andoutlines a framework for change that helps people foster a morecreative, risk tolerant mindset. Alex also hosts the Be More Piratepodcast, interviewing rebels, pioneers, and changemakers across theworld.
Alex is an expertin leadership, communications and culture change; in 2022 sheco-designed and delivered a large-scale global training programme forMercedes-Benz, upskilling their employees to become mentors to youngenvironmental entrepreneurs. This was part of a bigger projectlooking at how you can apply social movement strategies to changecorporate culture.
She is currentlyworking on her next book “The Edges of the Map” which will lookat the psychology of non-conformity through a series of real worldexperiments. Alex is also a strong advocate for upskilling women inthe workplace and runs a public speaking programme, Pass the Mic, forwomen who want to find and own their voice.
Previously sheworked at the Royal Society of Arts and holds degrees in ComparativeLiterature and International Relations from King’s College London.The fusion of storytelling and system change is the foundation of herwork.
Topics
The Edges of the Map
You can’t solve problems with thesame mindset that created them. So why do we keep on trying?
After nearly a decade as a businessconsultant and facilitator, Alex has seen the same problems ariseover and over as a result of teams using the same thinking, the samemethods and the same approaches. The solution is not moreinformation, the solution lies in our lived experience.
A natural extension of Be More Pirate,this talk dives deeper into the psychology ofnon-conformity. Through a series of real world experiments,Alex will explore how you can break with convention to unlearnunhealthy behaviours, disrupt ingrained patterns, reclaim yourattention, compound your imagination, better trust your judgement,and embrace life’s grey areas.
The edges is where the future revealsitself, and the future belongs to those at the edges.
How to Be More Pirate
From Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean, Blackbeard toBarbosa - pirates are usually portrayed as outlaws and villains. Butwhat if you’re not getting the full story?
Far from being troublemakers, pirates were the entrepreneurs,innovators and pioneers of their day. They createddemocratic high-performing teams, distributed power, forged newalliances, and built fairer, better systems. They didn’t just breakrules, they rewrote them entirely.
Based on the framework in her book How to Be More Pirate andseven years of coaching global teams, Alex Barker will show you howmodern organisations have applied pirate principles to successfullyreshape their business model, leadership style and culture.
Be More Pirate offers teams and leaders the tools to broach difficultconversations, take more strategic risks and navigate uncertainty.Backed by behavioural science, this talk willexplore why rebellion, done in the right way at the right moment,isn't a risk to manage but a skill to harness.It will give you a completelydifferent lens on change and the permission to start doing thingsdifferently.
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