NSB Logo Duncan Wardle Duncan Wardle

Duncan Wardle

Speaker

Orlando, Florida, USA

Former Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney

As the Former Head of Innovation & Creativity at the Walt Disney Company, Duncan Wardle is an inspiring and engaging keynote speaker, as well as a provocative and results-driven business consultant, who applies his creative talents and unconventional methods to help companies and individuals get to those breakthrough ideas that lead to extraordinary results. With an infectious energy and playful collaboration, Duncan pushes executives and their teams to overcome preconceived ideas, act more audaciously and dare to dream up with the exciting new things consumers are looking for.

Keynote Speeches

The Imagination Emporium

Recipes for ideating, innovating, and more! 

Drawing from my experience as Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney, I’ve developed a practical toolkit that makes innovation accessible, creativity tangible, and the process fun.  Simply reframing challenges by using a different set of questions can pique your curiosity and help you find new insights for innovation. No matter where your organization is located, if you are looking to embed innovation into your team’s DNA by giving them a toolkit that makes innovation easy, creativity tangible, and the process fun, then look no further than the one who has already done it for the world’s most creative company–Disney.

Think Differently, the Disney Way! 

Do you ever wonder why most of your best ideas come to you in the shower? Have you ever pitched a new idea to watch it diluted or killed as it moves through the processes? Ever wanted to know how Walt Disney came up with the idea for a Disneyland or how Netflix completely revolutionized the movie rental industry? Or perhaps found yourself amazed at how some companies develop killer insights that enabled them to break into major new categories. Building on some 25 years experience with The Walt Disney Company, most recently as Vice President of Innovation and Creativity, Duncan Wardle creates an engaging presentation that will not only answer these questions but leave you with the tools to take on your challenges in new and different ways that deliver tangible results.

Embedding Innovation into Everyone’s DNA

Disruption is inevitable and part of our everyday lives. So, how do you make Innovation a part of everyone’s DNA? How do you create a culture that embraces risk and entrepreneurialism, which allows everyone to innovate? During this presentation, Duncan shares how he infused a culture of innovation with a startup mindset across one of the most creative companies in the world, Disney, by using a unique innovation toolkit. Disruption is now a part of everyday life. So how do you make Innovation a part of everyone’s DNA? How do you create a culture that embraces risk and entrepreneurialism, allowing everyone to innovate? Here Duncan shares how he infused a culture of innovation with a start-up mindset, across one of the most creative companies via a unique innovation toolkit.

Leading for Creativity

How do some brands create a culture of creativity across everything they touch? Based on 25 years working with Disney, most recently as Vice President of Innovation & Creativity, Duncan shares some of the key creative techniques and behaviors he uses to develop big, innovative ideas. During this presentation, he stirs and unleashes the audiences’ creative juices.

Demystifying Design Thinking

What if you could learn a series of practical Design Thinking tools that you could actually use to create ideas that are embedded in consumer truth and drive business results? Duncan creates a deeply engaging, immersive presentation that not only answers these questions but also leaves the audience with a series of practical tools to take on challenges in new and different ways.

Delivering Customer Experience Magic

Disney’s ability to redefine and dominate nearly every industry it has ever entered is no coincidence. The continued success of Disney has been driven by a foundational trait of the company that goes all the way back to it’s founder, Walt Disney, who was merciless in his pursuit of innovating the customer experience.

By viewing all major business decisions as a customer experience decision, The Walt Disney Company continues to find innovative ways to engage consumers around the world, both old and new. And these innovative experiences have created one of the most passionate, loyal fanbases of all time. So, how does Disney Think Different and leverage creativity to innovate the customer experience? Through several specific tools and examples, I’ll share this information with your teams during my Delivering Customer Experience Magic keynote.

You’ll learn from the following examples:

  • By simply re-expressing the industry challenge Walt
    Disney created a level of hospitality that has never
    been replicated.
  •  How by challenging the rules of the industry, Walt came up with the biggest creative solution of the
    twentieth century.
  • Learn how Disney Parks turned very product centric culture into a consumer centric one.
  •  How Disney leverages High Tech to enable High Touch, delivering record guest satisfaction.
  • And How instead of asking ourselves How We Might
    make more money, by asking how my we address the biggest consumer pain point we created record revenues at Disney.

Platform Plus Presentations

Unique formats and ways to connect with audiences.
Workshop | Imagination Emporium A Design Thinking, Innovation Toolkit
Do you ever wonder why most of your best ideas come to you in the shower? Have you ever pitched a new idea to watch it diluted or killed as it moves through the processes? Ever wanted to know how Walt Disney came up with the idea for a Disneyland or how Netflix completely revolutionized the movie rental industry? Or perhaps found yourself amazed at how some companies develop killer insights that enabled them to break into major new categories. Building on some 25 years experience with The Walt Disney Company, most recently as Vice President of Innovation and Creativity, Duncan Wardle creates an engaging workshop that will not only answer these questions but leave you with the tools to take on your challenges in new and different ways that deliver tangible results.
MASTERCLASS WORKSHOPS
In my role as role as Head of Innovation and Creativity for Disney, Lucas Films, Pixar and Marvel I piloted 4 models of innovation.

1. External innovation gurus like IDEO.
2. Creating an Innovation team and
3. An accelerator program. All of the programs achieved some good success but failed in achieving our goal of Embedding a Culture of Innovation into everyone’s DNA.

I also recognized this gap existed in most corporations, who having been so successful for so long, they tend to have a legacy mentality, where the C Suite asks their team to innovate, think different, talk risks etc, but no one is showing people how! So leaning on my 25+ years at Disney, I decided to create my own innovation masterclass. I run the Masterclasses as I am a great believer that people learn much better by doing. So if your clients are looking to embed innovation into everyone’s DNA by giving them a toolkit that makes innovation easy, creativity tangible and the process fun, they might want to explore this option.

Audience reviews:

  • While Duncan spoke to a large and packed room, people were inspired and hung on his every word. Many claimed it was one of the best presentations they'd ever experienced. If you're looking for an amazing speaker who can motivate others to innovate, then look no further than Duncan Wardle. - Founder, Social Media Examiner and Social Media Marketing World
  • He was the audience favorite, hands down. His presentations are work sessions designed to be fun, interactive, and fast-paced. Duncan is true wealth of creative knowledge and inspiration, and he helped our members stretch their out-of-the-box thinking.

    - President & Executive Director, Path to Purchase Institute
  • Duncan’s workshop sparked our creative minds and gave us tools that will pay dividends for years to come. My team was thoroughly captivated, fully engaged, energized and inspired. Look no further than Duncan for one of the best investments you will ever make in your business.

    - Vice President of Marketing, Orlando Magic
  • “Duncan has amazed all of us and our audience during his visit to Colombia. Addressing to an audience of over 1,000 people he was able to land innovation and creativity in very simple and practical steps, and in a very fun way also! It is obvious that his over 20 years of experience with outstanding results in his back has given us also proven results of his proposed methodology. As a speaker, he comes across very simple, clear but with an incredible passion that is so contagious, you don’t realize how time goes by in his presentation!

    - CEO, Tigo Une
  • Duncan has a unique way of connecting with an audience and challenging them to approach creativity in a radically different approach. Considering that many of the people in the audience are creative people by nature and job description, that is fairly remarkable. Duncan’s insights and sense of humor keep the audience engaged from start to finish!

    - President & CEO, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions

Speaker Biography

Duuncan shares his unique Id8&Innov8 model, honed at Disney, as a creativity speaker and design thinking coach for top brands (Coca-Cola, Ford, Johnson & Johnson), agencies (McKinsey, Thinking Heads, Rock Orange) and Universities (UCF, Rollins, Full Sail). By combining play, fun and daring, Duncan teaches and coaxes his audiences to pull themselves out of their own River of Thinking, to think and act disruptively and creatively.

Prior to founding his firm Id8&Innov8, Duncan spent 25 years as a senior executive for the Walt Disney Co. In his most recent role as Vice President of Innovation & Creativity for Disney, he founded the Creative Catalyst team, where he developed a design thinking toolkit that enables both individuals and teams to increase their capacity to innovate, as well as a series of tangible Innovation Tools and Creative Behaviors. Together with his team, Duncan trained over 3,000 professional and executive Disney cast members from Pixar, Lucas film, Marvel, Animation, Disney Institute, Imagineering and Disney University how to unlock their creativity using tools that encouraged them to think more audaciously to solve challenges big and small and create innovative new storylines, products and services.

Before heading up Innovation & Creativity at Disney, Duncan was Vice President of Global Public Relations and Vice President of International Marketing & Sales for the Disney Parks division. Duncan served in an executive role for the Walt Disney Company in London, Paris, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mumbai and, most recently, Shanghai. In 2008, he was honored with the “Outstanding American Citizen Award” at the White House and in 2014 he was awarded a Hons. Doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University. He also holds the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, presented by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Duncan’s #1 passion is to unleash the magic within each individual and organization.