Daan van Rossum
AI is changing what organizations can do. The bigger question is what we want them to become.
Daan van Rossum is the founder and CEO of Lead with AI and a keynote speaker on people-centric AI transformation. He speaks to CEOs, leadership teams, and conference audiences about turning AI’s potential into business results, better ways of working, and more opportunities for people.
His talks draw on 25 years in business strategy, innovation, and leadership, and on hands-on experience helping thousands of senior leaders understand and implement AI.
Founder & CEO of Lead with AI · LinkedIn Top Voice · Featured in Forbes, The New York Times, and Harvard Business Review
On stage and in the room
Plug and Play Silicon Valley Summit.
MMA CEO & CMO Summit
SHRM Future of Talent Summit.
“The assembled group comprised widely different levels of AI-literacy and yet Daan, with his unique gift for storytelling and his empathic ability to read an audience, managed to set off lightbulbs in every corner of that room.”
Dale Nottingham, Executive Director, NordCham
“Our leadership team gained a sharp understanding of what AI can mean for our business, and we walked away with a concrete portfolio of twelve high-impact projects, from quick wins to long-term bets.”
Aric Austin, Founder & CEO, MyStorage
The ideas behind every talk
Almost every organization now has AI activity. Employees are experimenting, companies are buying licenses, and leadership teams are discussing strategy. Far less of that activity is changing the business.
Daan has watched thousands of senior leaders take their first steps with AI, build working assistants, and rethink their jobs. That experience shaped three convictions that run through his talks.
Workflows are the unit of AI transformation. Real transformation happens when organizations redesign how work gets done.
Leadership fluency comes before organizational transformation. Leaders need enough firsthand experience with AI to recognize opportunities, make good decisions, and guide their teams through change.
Success is measured in human and business impact. AI should create more value while giving people more capacity for creativity, judgment, meaningful work, and human connection.
Speaking formats
Business Executive Network Keynote.
Keynotes & Executive Briefings
For conferences, leadership gatherings, board meetings, and company events.
Daan’s talks combine a research-driven view of how AI is evolving with practical lessons from organizations learning to transform work. He challenges assumptions, makes complex developments accessible to nontechnical audiences, and shows both the opportunities and the difficult choices ahead.
Every talk is tailored to its audience, whether that is a room of CEOs, an executive team, or thousands of employees preparing for an AI-enabled future.
MyStorage AI Strategy Workshop.
Executive Workshops & Leadership Offsites
For leadership teams that want to move from understanding AI to acting on it.
Daan facilitates practical, interactive sessions that connect emerging AI capabilities to your strategy, challenges, and opportunities. Each session combines the latest research, real-world examples, live AI demonstrations, and structured exercises.
Leaders leave with a shared perspective, high-value opportunities, and clear priorities for action.
For support beyond a single session, Lead with AI runs full people-centric AI transformation engagements.
Speaking topics
The Future of Work Is Human: People-Centric AI Transformation
What kind of organizations will AI allow us to build? How can leaders use it to create better businesses and better work instead of simply automating existing jobs? This forward-looking keynote explores the choices that will shape that future.
From AI Adoption to Real Transformation
Why are so many organizations investing in AI without seeing matching business impact? This practical keynote explores the missing connections between AI fluency, leadership, workflow redesign, and measurable outcomes.
The Co-Pilot Economy: Redesigning Work Around Humans and AI Agents
As AI moves from answering questions to executing complex work, roles, teams, and operating models will change. What should humans continue to own? What should AI take over? And how do leaders design organizations where people and agents work well together?
The AI-Fluent Leader: What Leadership Looks Like When AI Can Do the Work
The next generation of leaders will be defined by their ability to identify opportunities, exercise judgment, redesign workflows, and lead people through continuous technological change.
About Daan
NordCham Nordic Business Briefing.
Daan’s career has been shaped by one question: how can organizations be built so that both people and businesses thrive?
Before founding Lead with AI, he spent nine years in Marketing Strategy Consulting at Ogilvy across Amsterdam, New York, Chicago, Singapore, and Ho Chi Minh City, helping businesses navigate digital and organizational change.
He later became CEO of Dreamplex, focusing on the relationship between workplaces, employee experience, and organizational performance.
Today, he works at the intersection of AI, leadership, and organizational transformation. Lead with AI’s programs have helped thousands of senior leaders build practical AI capabilities, and its transformation work helps organizations move from individual experimentation to lasting changes in how they operate.
Daan is also a writer, LinkedIn Top Voice, and the creator and host of podcasts and newsletters on AI, leadership, and the future of work. His perspective has been featured in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Business Insider, and Forbes, and he has spoken at events organized by The Economist, SHRM, and MMA Global.
Across all of this work, Daan’s conviction has only grown stronger: technology should serve human progress.
Selected writing
People-Centric AI Transformation: Why Work Is Broken, and What We’re Doing About It
Daan’s perspective on why organizations need to rethink AI transformation around people, meaningful work, and lasting business outcomes.
Read the articleOVER: The Framework for Redesigning Your Workflow Around AI
A practical framework for moving from vague AI ambitions to concrete changes in everyday work, starting with outputs, actions, human judgment, and the right tools.
Read the frameworkAI Fluency: The A-Z Guide for AI Mastery in Companies
Why AI fluency is becoming an essential organizational capability and how leaders can develop, measure, and scale it.
Read the guideAI and Entry-Level Jobs: Why the First Rung of the Career Ladder Is Breaking
An exploration of AI’s effects on early careers and why leaders must rethink how the next generation develops professional skills and judgment.
Read the articleIn the media.
Forbes: How AI Is Changing Work and the Human Experience
Quoted on the tension between what AI makes possible and what is a smart choice for how we work.
Read on ForbesPlug and Play Summit: The Technology Is Ready. Leadership Is Not.
Daan’s reflections from his keynote on why leadership capability and workflow redesign, more than technology investment alone, determine AI transformation success.
Read on LinkedInInvite Daan to your next event.
Whether you are preparing a leadership team for what comes next, planning a conference or offsite, or looking for a speaker who connects technology with business and human impact, we welcome a conversation.