Diana Kander

Biography

Diana Kander revolutionizes the way businesses look at innovation and curiosity. A New York Times best-selling author, innovation consultant and keynote speaker, she asks some big questions. What kind of culture needs to exist in an organization to ensure innovative ideas and practices? How has Snoop Dogg continued to innovate decade after decade to stay relevant to the next generation? What causes name brands to lose relevance with their customers and go out of business? Can organizational decline be prevented?

Diana has spent her career challenging assumptions and asking thought-provoking questions. A serial entrepreneur who entered the United States as a refugee at the age of 8, she has launched and sold millions of dollars worth of products and services. She outlined her biggest lessons learned for launching new products in her first book, All In Startup, which has been used by over 100 universities in their innovation courses and countless large organizations to help their employees think more like entrepreneurs. A former MBA professor at Mizzou, she has served as an entrepreneur in residence at H&R Block, Commerce Bank and several government agencies.

Diana’s second book, The Curiosity Muscle, explains why it’s harder to stay at the top than it was to get there. The book documents Diana’s consulting experience with large organizations and demonstrates why most companies who experience significant success can so easily get comfortable, lose their curiosity and crash into irrelevance. The book walks readers through a methodology to keep curiosity alive and thriving inside of an organization, ultimately, future-proofing the business.

Fun fact about Diana: She likes to use her curiosity methodology to push herself out of her own comfort zone and achieve big personal challenges each year. Despite having never completed a pull-up prior to 2021, she raised over $26,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City by doing 5,000 pull-ups that year.

Diana lives in Kansas City, Missouri with Jason, her high-school sweetheart and husband, their son, True and daughter, Bella Brave.

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Unleash Your Curiosity!

In today’s ever-changing business climate, your attendees’ roles have evolved far past their job descriptions. They face a volatile external environment - they encounter pressure to stay relevant to customers - they experience challenging workforce issues - and they are being asked to do a lot more with a lot less. All of this is asking them to be innovators. The big question is, are they doing it the hard way or the easy way.

Based on her book, The Curiosity Muscle, this keynote helps members of organizations who don't have innovation in their job description to embrace and identity as an innovator. Diana will share the key skills and habits that make innovation easier and a lot more fun. And she'll empower attendees to harness the power of curiosity to unlock new possibilities and drive business growth. Attendees will leave this keynote identifying as innovators and seeking opportunities to use their new skills.

ROI & Key Outcomes:
- How to institutionalize curiosity, asking better questions to stay competitive and relevant to your customers
- How to determine blind spots within your organization and avoid falling into the “expert trap"
- How to create a more innovative culture that leads to results and drives growth

Diana Kander is an innovation nerd - she spent the first decade of her career as an entrepreneur, launching 10 companies in 10 years, while selling millions of dollars of products and services. She spent the next decade coaching innovators inside large organizations; at one point she served as the innovation coach for the executive team of a $100 million dollar project.

Innovate to Sell: Unlock Your Sales Potential with Curiosity and Focus

This high-energy keynote is designed to equip sales teams with the tools and mindset to drive results in today’s fast-changing marketplace. Using principles from Diana’s book Get Curious & Grow, this session will help your sales team:

Prioritize What Matters Most:
Master the 1-10 Filter to identify and focus on the most impactful sales opportunities while eliminating distractions. Learn to say "no" to what doesn’t drive results and "yes" to what truly matters.

Eliminate the Noise:
Use the Kill the Zombies framework to hunt down and remove low-value activities, outdated processes, and unnecessary meetings that drain your energy and time.

Reimagine Your Approach:
Tap into the power of the Blank Sheet Method to break free from traditional sales strategies and imagine new, innovative ways to connect with clients and close deals.

Learn from Successes:
Discover how to use the Learn from the Wins habit to identify patterns in your successes, refine your strategies, and continually improve your sales performance.

Attendees will leave this session inspired and equipped with practical tools to innovate their approach, deepen client relationships, and exceed their sales targets.

Testimonials

Diana delivered an on-point message about entrepreneurship and innovation which was a perfect complement to our program and was one of the highlights for our more than 400 attendees. Not only was Diana’s talk anchored in data and evidence, it also included plenty of relevant personal anecdotes as well as a dose of humor. In addition, she helped us structure a reaction panel for her talk which made every one of her points come through that much stronger for our audience.

– Grupo Guayacan, Inc

I am a meeting planner so I have seen lots of Innovation Keynote Speakers and very few have had an impact as much as yours has on this group. Keep up the good work and keep improving yourself, whatever you are doing is working!

– Gartner Program & Portfolio Management Summit

Diana was a dynamic speaker, and I took a lot away from her presentation. She was very energetic and thought provoking.

– Missouri Small Business & Technology Development Center

Diana was our opening keynote for our annual Youth Conference. She held our audience captivated as the discussed what goes through a business persons mind when deciding to make decisions… Particularly when making hiring decisions.

– California Workforce Association

Diana spoke at one of our recent Leaders Conferences. We received many positive comments about her message and engaging speaking style. I would highly recommend Diana to any organization who wants a speaker who has lived the life of an entrepreneur and can communicate in a relevant and humorous way what it takes to start a business and be successful.

– Assurity Life Insurance Company

Booksby Diana Kander

The Curiosity Muscle

All In Startup

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