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Adam Markel

No. 1 WSJ Bestselling Author | Organizational Strategist | Co-Founder and Chief Researcher at WORKWELL

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Adam Markel, JD, is a #1 Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author, resilience researcher, organizational strategist, TEDx speaker, and Co-Founder and Chief Researcher at WORKWELL, a research and advisory firm focused on workplace resilience, culture, and sustainable performance. A former commercial attorney and C-suite leader, he brings more than two decades of experience helping organizations navigate change, lead under pressure, and strengthen performance and adaptation in high-stress, high-stakes environments. His research and advisory work is informed by years of organizational engagements and a growing body of workplace resilience data collected from more than 27,000 participants across leadership, practitioner, operational, and frontline roles.

 

His work integrates neuroscience, behavioral science, and organizational psychology to help leaders and organizations understand how people adapt under pressure, sustain performance, and respond to ongoing disruption. Across industries, his work is especially relevant where uncertainty, rapid decision-making, workforce strain, and continuous transformation shape outcomes for people, teams, and organizations. Adam translates resilience science, stress physiology, nervous system regulation, and behavior change into practical, research-informed strategies that leaders and teams can apply in real time. His frameworks help organizations build clarity, trust, and adaptability in environments defined by complexity, urgency, and change, while reducing burnout risk and supporting sustainable performance. 

 

With more than two decades of experience advising Fortune 500 organizations such as Citigroup, Home Depot, CVS Health, and Cisco, as well as institutions across healthcare, financial services, technology, government, education, energy, manufacturing, and professional services, Adam brings a systems-level perspective to culture, leadership, and organizational resilience. His background in law and executive leadership adds depth in risk management, decision-making under pressure, and navigating complex, high-consequence environments. These parallels resonate across sectors facing disruption, workforce fatigue, and accelerating operational demands. 

 

He is the best-selling author of Pivot, Change Proof and Re-Culture, books that have established him as a leading voice on resilience, change leadership, and the future of work. He is also the host of The Change Proof Podcast, where he explores how individuals, teams, and organizations can build the capacity to navigate uncertainty and perform sustainably without compromising well-being.

 

Earlier in his life, Adam served as an ocean first responder, where he developed a deep understanding of team coordination, situational awareness, and rapid response in life-critical conditions. Those principles continue to inform his work today. 

Speaking Topics

Adapt To Win: Unlocking The Power Of Strategic Resilience To Lead Change And Fuel High Performance

The pace of disruption is now outpacing the pace of organizational adaptation — and the leaders who win are the ones who embed strategic resilience into the DNA of their culture. In this high-impact keynote, Adam Markel shows organizations how to move beyond reactive fire-drills and build a proactive capability for absorbing shocks, accelerating intelligent adaptation, and emerging stronger from every challenge. Drawing on insights from Re-Culture and two decades of research, Adam illustrates exactly how high-performing organizations operationalize resilience as a strategic advantage — across leadership, team dynamics, and decision-making.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • Understand the critical difference between operational resilience and strategic resilience — and why long-term success requires both.
  • Learn leadership practices proven to increase adaptability, psychological safety, and team-wide agility.
  • Gain frameworks to embed resilience into culture, strategy, and operations for consistent high performance during transformation.
  • Leave with a practical roadmap for building organizations that don’t just withstand change — they capitalize on it.


This keynote gives your people a clear, repeatable blueprint for building systems, habits, and cultures that thrive in uncertainty. Attendees walk away equipped to lead with greater confidence, elevate team performance, and future-proof the business in a world where the only constant is change.


Resilience By Design: How To Future-Proof Teams & Thrive Through Uncertainty

Today’s workforce is under unprecedented pressure — rising expectations, constant change, and near-continuous transformation. Performance now requires more than skills; it requires Change Resilience — the ability to adapt, recover, and excel in real time. In this energizing keynote, Adam Markel delivers a powerful, research-backed approach to building resilient people and resilient cultures that perform at the highest levels without burning out.


Through compelling stories and actionable tools, your organization will learn how to elevate well-being as a business strategy, reduce turnover, and create a culture where people consistently bring their best — because they have the capacity to do so. This talk is designed for leaders and individual contributors alike, giving everyone a common language and a shared framework for sustainable, repeatable high performance.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • Break through change resistance and empower teams to embrace innovation instead of fearing it.
  • Learn the four domains of resilience — mental, emotional, physical, and spirit-driven — and how they drive sustainable performance.
  • Discover practical strategies to increase energy, focus, and productivity without sacrificing health or engagement.
  • Reinforce a culture where well-being is viewed not as a perk, but as a performance multiplier.


This is the keynote that transforms how teams work, lead, and grow — not by doing more, but by becoming more resilient by design.


The Change-Proof Advantage: How To Turn Adversity Into Growth, Agility & Innovation

Change is no longer an event — it’s the environment. In his top-rated keynote, Adam Markel equips organizations with the proven strategies needed to embrace uncertainty, reduce burnout, and build teams capable of sustained high performance in the face of nonstop change.


Drawing from Change Proof and decades of leadership experience, Adam reveals how the world’s most adaptable organizations cultivate resilience across every level of the business — mental, emotional, physical, relational, and cultural. He shows leaders how to create a “Got Your Back” culture of trust and support that accelerates collaboration, innovation, and long-term success.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • Foster innovation by creating conditions where creativity thrives — even in pressure-filled environments.
  • Identify and prevent burnout using practical tools your leaders and teams can implement immediately.
  • Build individual and collective resilience to perform at a high level during continuous change.
  • Strengthen team cohesion, trust, and accountability through a “Got Your Back” cultural framework.
  • Drive consistent success with systems that create sustainable, repeatable performance.

This keynote transforms how organizations approach change — moving from reactive to proactive, from stressed to strong, and from disrupted to change-proof.


Re-Culture: The Got Your Back Blueprint - Building Trust-Driven Teams That Attract, Retain, And Thrive

At a time when talent is scarce, burnout is rising, and engagement is declining, organizations need more than perks or policies — they need a culture that creates belonging, trust, and loyalty. In this transformative keynote, Adam Markel delivers the central message of his new book Re-Culture: the most successful organizations are those that intentionally design a “Got Your Back” culture, where people feel supported, valued, and safe to perform at their highest level.


Adam reveals a practical, evidence-based blueprint for building cultures that attract top talent, strengthen engagement, reduce turnover, and unlock innovation. These are the cultural foundations that turn organizations into talent magnets — and teams into communities that thrive.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • Build resilience into your culture, enabling employees to navigate pressure and change with confidence.
  • Discover why trust and psychological safety are the ultimate differentiators in today’s talent marketplace.
  • Learn how to significantly boost engagement through belonging, communication, and shared purpose.
  • Identify early signs of burnout and deploy systems for creating sustainable, high-performing teams.
  • Activate a culture where retention is the outcome — not the goal.


This keynote is a culture-shaping experience that helps organizations create environments where people don’t just stay — they grow, contribute, and thrive.



From Burnout To Breakthrough: Strategies For Protecting Profit, Performance & People

Burnout isn’t just a wellness issue — it’s a profitability crisis. Organizations lose an estimated $322 billion annually to burnout-related turnover, disengagement, and reduced productivity. Yet most leaders still treat burnout as an individual problem rather than what it truly is: a systemic, solvable business challenge with measurable ROI.


In this transformative keynote, Adam Markel delivers the business case and the blueprint for burnout avoidance — equipping leaders with research-backed strategies that protect performance, reduce attrition, and unlock sustainable competitive advantage. Drawing from Re-Culture, Change Proof, and two decades of organizational resilience research, Adam reveals why the world’s highest-performing companies embed burnout prevention into their culture, operations, and leadership practices — and exactly how your organization can do the same.


This is not a lecture on self-care. This is a strategic framework for building resilient, high-capacity teams that consistently outperform without burning out. Adam shows leaders how to identify early-stage burnout signals, implement tangible energy management systems, and create a “Got Your Back” culture where people feel supported, engaged, and equipped to thrive under pressure.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • Understand the true cost of burnout — and the ROI of preventing it, including measurable impacts on retention, healthcare costs, productivity, and innovation.
  • Learn the four domains of resilience that fuel sustainable performance: mental clarity, emotional regulation, physical energy, and purpose-driven motivation.
  • Gain practical, immediately actionable tools for reducing team stress, managing workload intensity, and building recovery rhythms into daily operations.
  • Discover how to build a “Got Your Back” culture that reduces isolation, strengthens trust, and creates environments where burnout is systematically avoided.
  • Identify burnout warning signs before they escalate — and deploy early intervention strategies that protect both people and performance.
  • Leave with a repeatable system for embedding burnout prevention into leadership development, team norms, and organizational design.


This is the keynote that turns burnout from an inevitable cost into a preventable risk — and resilience into your organization’s most powerful competitive advantage.


The Adaptability Advantage: Why Resilience Will Determine Who Wins In The Age Of AI

In today’s environment, the pace of change isn’t just accelerating—it’s compounding. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how decisions are made, how work gets done, and how value is created across industries. And yet, across even the highest-performing companies, a familiar pattern is emerging: The technology is moving faster than the organization’s ability to adapt.


For CEOs leading high-growth companies—and the investors backing them—this gap has become one of the most significant determinants of performance. Because when stakes are high, success doesn’t go to the organizations with the best strategy or the most advanced tools.

It goes to those that can evolve the fastest.


In this thought-provoking keynote, resilience expert Adam Markel reframes adaptability as a strategic capability—one that can be operationalized across teams, cultures, and leadership systems. Drawing on his Change Proof framework, Adam explores why AI adoption and other forms of disruption often stall—not due to lack of vision or investment, but because of unseen resistance at the human and cultural level.


Through powerful storytelling and practical insight, Adam shows how leaders can build organizations that don’t just respond to change—but leverage it. He outlines how to create teams that remain focused under pressure, make better decisions in uncertainty, and view disruption not as a threat, but as a catalyst for innovation and growth.


Because in a Darwinian business landscape, the ultimate competitive advantage isn’t intelligence.


It’s adaptability. And adaptability—when built intentionally—is resilience.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • The Adaptability Gap: Why Execution Lags Behind Innovation - Understand why even well-resourced, high-growth organizations struggle to fully adopt AI and other emerging technologies—and how that gap impacts performance, scalability, and valuation.
  • Resilience as a Strategic Capability -  Learn how to operationalize resilience across your organization—building the mental, emotional, and cultural capacity required to adapt quickly and effectively under pressure.
  • Leading Through High-Stakes Change Without Triggering Resistance - Discover how leaders can align teams, reduce friction, and accelerate adoption during periods of rapid transformation—without creating burnout, fear, or disengagement.
  • Turning Disruption into a Performance Advantage - Explore how organizations can train their people to interpret change differently—shifting from reactive to proactive, and from risk avoidance to opportunity creation.

Turning AI Anxiety Into Innovation: Build A Culture Of Innovation & Future-Ready Workforce

AI is reshaping the world of work faster than most organizations can adapt — creating both unprecedented opportunities and very real fears. In this timely and forward-thinking keynote, Adam Markel helps leaders and teams turn AI anxiety into a catalyst for innovation, resilience, and competitive advantage.


Adam demystifies AI’s impact on work, well-being, culture, and performance, offering a human-first framework for integrating AI in ways that enhance—not replace—human potential. Organizations leave with a roadmap for building adaptable, future-ready teams that use AI to reduce burnout, increase creativity, and strengthen productivity.


Key Learning Objectives Include:

  • Clearly understand the role AI will play in workflows, leadership, employee experience, and cross-functional operations.
  • Learn how AI-enhanced processes can improve mental health, reduce stress, and create sustainable work-life balance.
  • Equip teams with tools to adapt faster, think more creatively, and embrace technology with confidence.
  • Build resilience as a competitive edge during the accelerating pace of technological change.
  • Transform fear and uncertainty into growth, learning, and future-focused innovation.


This keynote empowers organizations to build a workforce that doesn’t resist the future — but creates it.



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Testimonials

"We were so happy with Adam! He really nailed the brief unlike any other speaker we’ve had before and gave our participants wonderful, tangible tips on building resilience. We’re looking forward to the next time!"

"We made the right call in having Adam as our keynote!! He was great! The team loved him and his message resonated very well. The assessment that he had us do was also very insightful, both on an individual and group level. Adam was personable both on and on stage, which allowed him to really connect with the executive team."

"From my first conversation with Adam I knew we were going to have an incredible event today. There was some chemistry on the phone and I have to say today absolutely held up to the high expectations I had for what we were going to do. I care about the people in this room and they need to hear this message and Adam was the right person (and this was the right vehicle) to get that to our folks. Thank you so much - we appreciate you being a part of our team."

"Adam was very well received and his messaging was right on target. He and his team were a dream to work with – professional, organized, and committed to our event’s success. Adam took the time to know our audience and tailor his presentation to address their needs. Our conference attendees left the room inspired and with a tangible next step to increase their resilience."

"Adam was a fantastic addition to our Operations Leadership Conference. Adam’s attention to detail and ability to tailor his messaging to our audience really came through in his keynote address. His energy was contagious, and our audience was eager to participate and learn from him. Overall, Adam was the right speaker at the right time and gave the group a lot to think about as we dene the next chapter for the Dunkin’ Operations Team."

"Adam is an amazing speaker who is able to keep the audience engaged all the time even in a virtual session. He goes beyond by sharing his unique resilience assessment tool which is a huge takeaway for everyone. We are super glad we decided to invite Adam to our event, he simply delivered great learnings in a true storytelling experience. Looking forward to having him again in one of our events...And an extra point, Adam has an extraordinary team behind him that helps everything run smooth and awless during planning and event execution. They are a full package."

"Please pass along our gratitude to Adam for the wonderful presentation today. His energy and transparency was contagious and the best way to end our session. There was something for everyone in the material he presented and the stories he shared. I know my tank was completely lled after hearing his message."

"We were looking for something that was dierent for our A/E/C Thrive Conference - something out of the box, that would change the way people think. Adam delivered all that in spades. He gave us so many interesting things to think about. The audience loved it - they were talking, engaging and interacting with each other. We weren't expecting that! Adam really knows how to pull people out and get them focused on the core issues. Resilience is a hot topic but not everybody can really talk about it in an engaging way like Adam. He helped us consider things differently."

"Adam’s presentation was super energetic and well received by our manager population. The way he presented far exceeded what I thought was possible for a Zoom experience, and the interactivity and dynamism stood out."

Adam couldn’t have been a better choice for our event. His message was very well received, as was evidenced by the standing ovation at the end. He really delivered for us, providing a nice toolkit that we could put into action quickly. The attendees felt very resourced in ways to increase performance. It’s clear that Adam is a mature, experienced and well-rounded speaker whose authenticity and transparency ensured his message really resonated and left everyone feeling that we as a company have their back.

"It was great working with Adam. The feedback from the participants has been outstanding. One even described it as “life-changing.” His insights and perspectives were very timely for our team - at all levels. Moreover, I loved the roadmap of actionable advice he provided. Thanks again!"

"Thank you immensely for your inspiring message at this year’s sales kickoff. Not only was it timely, it was well received by the group. I heard guys saying “I got your back” throughout the rest of the event. I look forward to where our team takes the message."

"Adam couldn’t have been a better choice for our event. His message was very well received, as was evidenced by the standing ovation at the end. He really delivered for us, providing a nice toolkit that we could put into action quickly. The attendees felt very resourced in ways to increase performance. It’s clear that Adam is a mature, experienced and well-rounded speaker whose authenticity and transparency ensured his message really resonated and left everyone feeling that we as a company have their back."

"The feedback from all corners is OVERWHELMING. Thank you so much for sharing with us yesterday. I JUST came from yet another conversation where someone said you were the best keynote in the 7 years they’ve been attending. I’ve heard a dozen or more people who have started their day with one or more of your recommendations."

"Adam's message really resonated, so much so that it set the tone for the rest of the week, becoming a theme of every presentation and the hallway chatter. It was exactly what we needed at this moment. People were so excited after the event and even told us that this was the best meeting! The takeaways had real impact and, most importantly, fulfilled an important purpose of the meeting - to get buy-in on the future of our organization. You were a big part of that."

"Adam JUST spoke to our group and I've already had people come up and tell me he is the BEST speaker that we have had of all of our sessions…and we've been doing this for over 30 years! He was dynamic and wonderful and we have really appreciated him being here. Thank you, Adam!"

"We express our gratitude for such an amazing and inspiring session. We will of course take all of your advice and suggestions to make us more resilient. On top of being an amazing speaker, you and your team are also some of the nicest people that I’ve had the chance to work with. Thank you for that."

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