Chris provides unique insights into innovation, technology and human behaviour which inspire audiences and organizations to action.

As the former head of Harvard Innovation Labs, Chris Colbert understands that the pace of change in the world is now faster than the natural pace of most organizations and people. Technology, globalization and inter-connectedness have resulted in hyper-competition and an unrelenting pressure to perform better, which means to innovate faster. Innovation is not a thing, it's a way of being, an ethos and belief system – also known as a culture. Chris believes that whether you're a country, company or everyday citizen, you must innovate to thrive and even survive, which means you need to transform your culture from reactive to proactive, from static to dynamic, from 'do-ers' to 'learners-and-do-ers'.

Chris offers different thinking and practical, applicable guidance on how to create a culture of innovation and realize the myriad of positive consequences it will yield.

Chris has spent his entire career running or helping others run high performing entities, entities founded on cultures of innovation. Chris has the unique ability to paint a picture of what could be and then help to make it happen. He has helped build and run several domestic and international companies focused on innovation and business optimization. After leading a bold revamp of Scholastic's core publishing business and its return to positive growth, he left in early 2014 to explore the world of higher education and innovations that might help improve its price/value. That led him to the Harvard Innovation Labs, where he served as Managing Director for four years. In 2019 he left to found one eighty, a global innovation firm focused on helping countries and companies better compete by creating adaptive learning systems that yield cultures of innovation. He is first and foremost an innovator, capable of finding simple solutions to complex problems while painting a compelling picture for any organization of its unrealized potential.

Chris presents to large conferences, client forums and to corporate meetings. He delivers his insights about technology, innovation and humanity through various presentations, including "Technology is Dead", "Inside Innovation", "The Rise & Fall of Everything", "Future:Simple", "A Convenient Untruth", "No Friction".

Chris is an author, recently publishing This Is It, a provocative treatise on how to take advantage of the only life we get, as well as an inspirational speaker and a strategic advisor to several CEOs and their executive teams. He is working on his new book "Technology is Dead" to be published in 2020. He received a BA from Connecticut College, an International MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business and sits on several boards including Pillar Venture Capital, Now + There, Fintech Americas, Nilus and the Copenhagen Fintech Global Advisory Board.