Chief Reinvention Officer | I help corporations thrive in perpetual turbulence and capitalize on disruption | Teaching my science-based methods to help 1B people reinvent continuously

Never in my wildest dreams did I think the chaos of my childhood would become the blueprint of my career.

I grew up in the collapse of the Soviet Union—
when factories shut down, banks failed, and the future disappeared overnight.

That’s where my obsession with reinvention began.
Not as a corporate slogan.
As a survival strategy.

I was determined to understand one thing:
Why do some people and organizations rise through disruption—while others fall apart?

So I climbed the ladder the “safe” way.
🎓 Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University
🏢 Coca-Cola Chaired Professor of Sustainable Development at one of Europe’s top business schools
🌍 Consulting projects for L’Oréal, IBM, Henkel, Coca-Cola—and even the Office of the Queen of England and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
⛏️ Fractional mining executive, learning reinvention deep inside one of the world’s most volatile industries

But safety has a way of turning into stagnation.
And I could see it everywhere—
in boardrooms, in classrooms, in the mirror.

So I walked away from the traditional academic path to build what didn’t yet exist:
a science-based system for thriving in disruption.

In the years that followed, I:
➤ Founded The Reinvention Academy, now serving leaders in 60+ countries
➤ Developed the Reinvention Method, now taught in universities from McGill to Simmons
➤ Published The Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook: How to Thrive in Chaos — winner of multiple global business book awards
➤ Co-founded the Reinvention Summit, uniting top minds in strategy, innovation, and change
➤ Became a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes, bringing reinvention science to a global executive audience
➤ Helped organizations turn chaos into competitive advantage—again and again

Today, my mission is simple:
To make reinvention a habit, not a reaction.
To transform disruption from a threat into a source of growth, creativity, and meaning.

Because the future doesn’t belong to the strongest or the smartest.
It belongs to the most reinvented.

———

👋 Follow me for bold insights on reinvention, change leadership, and thriving through disruption.
💥 Bring me to keynote your next event: info@learn2reinvent.com
📘 Read the book: The Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook → learn2reinvent.com/handbook
🎓 Become a Certified Reinvention Professional: learn2reinvent.com/cra

This is beyond must-watch.
This is what happens when we stop pretending. 

When we look at the facts.
When we admit that nastalgia is not a strategy.
That if we are not at the table, we are on the menu. 
When we finally take ownership of our destiny.
And start reinventing with no apologies.

Watch.
Share.
Take a note of this moment.

We are leaving the world of top-down leadership and start building networked, distributed leadership - now in geopolitics, too.

This is reinvention at its best.
Hope is in the air.

Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva

You’re not scattered. You’re a polymath.
And that might be your greatest leadership advantage.

In a world of constant disruption, the problems we face don’t come with clean labels.
They cut across disciplines. They refuse neat answers.
They demand leaders who can think in layers — not lanes.

Here’s a word that deserves a comeback: Polymathy.

🔎 noun
The capacity to operate fluently across multiple disciplines, paradigms, and problem spaces — and to integrate them into new, adaptive solutions.

Coined in 1603.
Essential in 2026.

Because reinvention doesn’t belong to a single field.
It lives at the intersection of strategy, innovation, leadership, systems thinking, psychology, storytelling, tech, and beyond.

In today’s volatility, polymathy isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity.

💬 What part of your own work depends on connecting ideas across fields?

Nadya helps people & organizations turn change & disruptions into an opportunity - and a source of real competitive advantage - again and again.

Called ‘The Reinvention Guru’ (In Ventures magazine) & ‘The Queen of Reinvention’ (TEDx Navasink), Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva is a business owner, educator, speaker & author -- specializing in reinvention.

As a consultant, Nadya has helped such organizations as The Coca-Cola Company, ERG, Kohler, L'Oreal, IBM, CISCO, Erste Bank, Henkel, Knauf Insulation & many others to reinvent their products, processes, & leadership practices.

As an educator, Nadya personally contributed to the development of more than 10,000 executives from over 60 countries & 20 industries. For nearly 10 years, Nadya taught courses in leadership, strategy & sustainability at IEDC-Bled School of Management, an executive education center based in the Slovene Alps, where she also served as the Coca-Cola Chaired Professor of Sustainable Development. In addition to IEDC, Nadya has been teaching in business schools around the world, including  Case's Weatherhead School of Management (USA), IPADE Business School (Mexico), and CEDEP (France), where she also contributes to the Academic Committee of the school.

As a speaker, Nadya has shared her insights with audiences worldwide through keynotes, panel presentations, & workshops. She has delivered four TEDx talks in Austria, Slovenia, Romania & the US.

As an author, Nadya has written three books (“Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage” in 2011, “Overfished Ocean Strategy: Powering Up Innovation for a Resource-Deprived World” in 2014, and "Titanic Syndrome: Why Companies Fail and How to Reinvent Your Way Out of Any Business Disaster" in 2018) and contributed to six others. In an effort to reinvent corporate approaches to sustainability strategy, Nadya and her co-author Chris Laszlo coined the concept ‘embedded sustainability’, which was virtually non-existent when they started in 2009. Today, it produces 55 million Google search results & has become a staple for corporate sustainability efforts.

Nadya’s fourth and latest book, “The Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook: How to Thrive in Chaos” is the a finalist in the American Book Fest Awards, the winner of the 2021 Axiom Business Books Awards, and the winner of the Kirkus Star, "one of the most coveted designations in the book industry, which marks books of exceptional merit."

Vikram Das

On January 5th, 2026, something quietly historic happened.

For years, we’ve been building a new reinvention certification system — slowly, deliberately, and with a lot of care.

Not because certifications are fashionable.
But because reinvention done badly is dangerous — for organizations and for people.

Over time, that work took shape:

The Certified Reinvention Associate program — building a solid foundation with 5 essential tools.
The Certified Reinvention Practitioner program — going deeper with live projects, 7 weeks of intense sessions, and an expanded toolkit.

And then there was the final stage.

The one we refused to rush.

The Certified Reinvention Masters program.

Years in the making.
Invite-only.
Designed for people who have already lived reinvention — not just studied it.

This week, 8 brave pioneers officially stepped into that circle: Gary Graham Astrid Sheil, PhD, CRP Carolyn Strauss, CSP, CRP Dr GILBERT DENNIS       CRP Andrew Wrobel CRP Tania Rowland 🐦‍🔥 Ana Marinic Adeliah Jacobs

Among them:
• 2 Drs - one Ph.D. and one clinical
• Leaders and practitioners from Slovenia, Austria, the US, the UK, South Africa, and New Zealand
• People who’ve spent years doing the hard, on-the-ground work of reinvention in such organizations as Raiffeisen Bank, Spur Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, UNICEF, Deloitte, Canon, PwC, Bayer, and so many others

This photo captures that moment — not perfection, not polish, but something far more meaningful:

Commitment.
Practice.
And community.

And here’s the part I really want you to hear:

You don’t need decades of experience.
You don’t need a special invite.
You don’t need to have it all figured out.

You can start building your reinvention muscles today.

That’s exactly why we run the Easy Reinvention Lab —
free, live, on Zoom, with replay starting January 26th.

It’s where thousands of professionals take their first real step into reinvention — with clarity, confidence, and tools they actually keep using.

The link is in the comments - first 300 professionals already registered, so don't miss your chance.

Every master was once a beginner.
What matters is that you start.

Here’s a story I can’t shake.

Last week, in the middle of a vacation, a CEO asked for an urgent call:
“I didn’t listen to you two years ago when you warned us. Now we’re paying the price.”

He’s not alone.

I call this Titanic Syndrome — a corporate disease where, when disruption hits, we create our own downfall through arrogance, attachment to the past, or failure to see the new reality. 

You’ve seen the symptoms:
⛔️ Warnings get waved off because the dashboard still looks “green.”
⛔️ Teams rely on yesterday’s wins to make today’s decisions.
⛔️ Strategy clings to the model we understand, not the changing reality we’re in.
⛔️ Budgets reward efficiency while the world demands reinvention.
⛔️ People who see the iceberg first are labeled “negative,” not “early.”

What to do now:
✅ Put fresh facts on one page (signals, customer shifts, unit economics) and make it the weekly truth everyone uses.
✅ Run a ruthless “keep/kill/reinvent” review — retire one initiative that’s past its prime and fund one small experiment that could replace it.
✅ Close the distance between strategy, innovation, and change: one cadence, shared metrics, clear decision rights.

The real risk isn’t disruption.
It’s defending what no longer works.

What are you still defending, and why?

I’ve never seen a crisis that wasn’t predictable.

COVID was predictable.
The AI acceleration was predictable. 
Regulations and new tariffs were predictable. 
Sales slowdowns are always predictable. 
New competitors are predictable. 
Massive layoffs were predictable. 
Employee disengagement was predictable — and measurable long before it shows up in results.

You get the idea.

What we later label as “sudden shocks” were visible as trends long before they turned into undeniable facts.

There was always a signal.

There was always data - tiny crumbs we miss or massive “elephants in the room” we choose to ignore.

Most companies I work with — or study — already know what in their products, processes, or business models should have been changed, upgraded, or retired years ago.

And yet those things linger.

The real problem isn’t disruption.

It’s avoidance.

We look away from necessary change until a crisis removes all choice.

Whether you’re dealing with a disruption today or trying to prepare for the next one, the lesson is the same: 

Change is not the enemy.
Facts are friendly.

It’s an invitation — to let go of what no longer works, to rebuild strength, and to find a better version of the business (and ourselves).

Starting with one simple question: What do you already know your organization will have to say goodbye to before the end of 2026 — and why not let it go now?

The World Economic Forum just released its latest skills outlook.
And if you look closely at the chart — really look — something important jumps out.

Yes, AI and big data are there.
Yes, technological literacy matters.

But the real gravity of the future workforce sits elsewhere.

Systems thinking.
Analytical thinking.
Creative thinking.
Leadership and social influence.
Resilience, flexibility, and agility.
Curiosity and lifelong learning.
Empathy, self-awareness, and human judgment.

In other words:
👉 Strategy. Reinvention. Change.

Not tools.
Not prompts.
Not hype.

The irony is hard to miss.

At the exact moment organizations rush toward AI, the skills that matter most are the ones that help humans:
• see the system clearly
• make better decisions under uncertainty
• work through resistance instead of denying it
• and redesign how work actually gets done

This is why so many AI initiatives stall.
Not because the technology doesn’t work —
but because the human operating system isn’t ready.

That’s exactly why we dedicated our January Easy Reinvention Lab to Unlocking AI.

Not as a technical sprint.
But as a hands-on strategy, reinvention, and change workshop — using AI as the mirror.

This Lab is built around the very capabilities the World Economic Forum is pointing to:
clarity over chaos,
systems over silos,
and human judgment where it matters most.

By the end, you won’t just understand why AI feels hard.
You’ll know what to stop, what to fix, and where to start.

The link is in the comments.

Join 19,471 professionals who already loved the Lab.

Because the future of work isn’t just technological.
It’s profoundly human.

Most people think AI is the problem. It isn’t.
What AI actually does is far more uncomfortable.

It exposes every crack we’ve been carefully stepping around for years.

The workflows nobody can fully explain.
The decisions made by habit, not logic.
The “temporary” fixes that quietly became permanent.
The data no one really trusts.
The resistance that has nothing to do with technology — and everything to do with fear.

AI doesn’t fix any of this.

AI reveals it.

Like switching on a forensic lamp in a hotel room you thought was clean — and suddenly wishing you hadn’t.

That’s why so many teams feel uneasy right now.
Why leaders feel exposed.
Why consultants quietly wonder if they’re behind.
Why so many smart people are pretending.

Not because they lack intelligence or ambition.

But because organizational honesty is rare — and AI makes dishonesty impossible to maintain.

That’s exactly why we decided to dedicate our January Easy Reinvention Lab to Unlocking AI.

Not as a technical sprint.
Not as a tools showcase.

But as a strategy, reinvention, and change workshop — using AI as the mirror.
This is hands-on work.
By the end, you’ll know what to stop, what to fix, and where to start.

The same legendary Lab format many of you already know:
1 hour a day
5 days
3 practical tools
Free, live, on Zoom — with replay if you can’t make it live

No jargon.
No pretending.
No transformation theater.
Just clarity, honesty, and human-centered reinvention — the kind that actually works.

The link is in the comments.
Join 19,471 professionals who already loved the Lab and start 2026 with a toolkit you can use again and again.

What if the problem isn’t that there’s too much disruption—
but that we’re still thinking about it the wrong way?

For years, strategy treated disruption like an interruption.

A shock.
A crisis.
A temporary deviation from “the plan.”

But if 2025 felt harder to lead than any year before, there’s a reason—and it has nothing to do with your competence.

Disruptions no longer arrive one at a time.

They stack.
They interact.
They trigger second- and third-order effects before organizations can even name the first.

AI collides with regulation.
Regulation reshapes customers.
Customers collide with fragile supply chains, talent shortages, and exhausted teams.

Disruptions no longer interrupt the system.

They are the system.

There’s a word for this new reality.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

I shared my choice for the word of 2026—and why it changes how leaders must think—in a new Forbes piece published on December 31.

It explains:

why linear strategy quietly breaks under compounding shocks
why working harder on “transformation” can actually make organizations more fragile
and why reinvention is no longer a project, initiative, or program—but an operating system

This isn’t a prediction.
It’s a diagnosis of the environment leaders are already navigating.

If you’re responsible for strategy, innovation, or people—and something feels fundamentally different lately—you’ll recognize yourself in this.

📌 Link to the Forbes article is in the first comment.

Read it.
Then tell me: what signal of this new era are you seeing first inside your organization?

In 2019, I presented the concept of the Reinvention Mindset at the annual Association of Change Management Professionals conference.

Looking at it today, I still stand by the core contrast — especially the shift from fear to curiosity, from reaction to proactive search for opportunity.

And at the same time, I feel the model is ready for a refresh.

Perhaps, the wording can be sharper.
Perhaps, there are better ways to capture what distinguish people who are excellent in today’s reality of constant change from those who struggle and resist it.
Or we might need to add more dimensions than the 5 listed.

So I’d love your perspective.

What parameters would you add or strengthen today?
What dimensions of mindset matter most now — based on what you’re seeing in your organizations, clients, teams, or careers?

Let’s evolve this model together so it reflects the reality we’re living in now.

Most of your peers feel like frauds right now.

They won’t say it out loud.
But you can feel it in the pauses.
In the overconfident language.
In the sudden rush to sound certain.

Clients are asking for guidance.
Leadership wants answers.
Everyone’s expected to “lead the way.”

And yet — behind closed doors?

→ Consultants with 20+ years of experience feel suddenly irrelevant
→ Corporate leaders are Googling basics at 11pm
→ Smart, credentialed professionals are quietly terrified they're "too late"

Here’s the part no one says clearly enough:

This isn’t a competence problem.
It’s a clarity problem.

In moments like this, the people who move forward aren’t the most technical.

They’re the ones who can:
• calm fear instead of amplifying it
• see the system instead of chasing tools
• help humans navigate uncertainty without pretending

That’s not luck.
It’s a capability.

And yes — it’s learnable.

That’s why, starting January 26, I’m hosting the Easy Reinvention Lab — a free, 5-day, live sprint focused on Unlocking AI.

Not a technical training.
Not a prompt library.
Not a performance act.

But a strategy, reinvention, and change workshop — designed to help you:
✔ reduce fear (in yourself and others)
✔ assess real disruption risk — not hype
✔ design human-centered responses that actually work

The format is intentionally simple:
1 hour a day
5 days
3 research-based tools
Live on Zoom — with replays

If you need to finally figure out what AI should mean for your team, your client, or your own career, this is the event for you.

The link is in the comments.

You’re not behind.
You’re just early enough to do this well.

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