In 2016, Thinkers50, the pre-eminent listing of management thinkers, included Alf Rehn on their Guru Radar, a list of “the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future”. He is recognized as a global thought-leader in innovation and creativity, has been profiled in international media (including, but not limited to, Italian fashion magazines and Brazilian arts journals), and is coming up to his 1000th keynote. Alf is 47, the Professor of Innovation, Design, and Management at the University of Southern Denmark, sits on numerous boards of directors, and is in addition a bestselling author and a strategic advisor for everything from hot new startups to Fortune 500-companies.
Currently, Alf distributes his time between academic work, corporate advisory, keynote speaking and his lifelong love of trashy popular culture. His academic work focuses on issues of power, exclusion, creativity and innovation, and often builds on counter-intuitive analyses of core assumptions within management thinking. As a strategic advisor, Alf’s roles have included (but haven’t been limited to) being the chairman of an international advertising agency, sitting on the board of directors of a billion-dollar corporation, and advising an artisanal and prize-winning distillery. As a speaker, Alf is known for his entertaining yet challenging keynotes and workshops, as well as for being one of the consistently best-rated speakers at any event he appears at.
