RICARDO SEMLER
Ricardo Semler | Change Leader | Reinventing Work & Leadership and “The man who ALMOST gave up”
Ricardo Semler — Returning to the Global Stage
Ricardo Semler, the legendary CEO of Semco and pioneer of radical corporate democracy is back.
Ricardo is known worldwide for transforming a traditional Brazilian manufacturing company into one of the most democratic, profitable and influential organisations on the planet, Semler grew Semco from $4 million to over $160 million while allowing employees to choose their bosses, set their own salaries and redesign their teams.
His books Maverick and The Seven-Day Weekend became management classics and his TED Talk — How to Run a Company With (Almost) No Rules — remains one of the most referenced in the future-of-work world.
After several years away from public speaking, Ricardo is returning with a renewed mission: helping leaders build change-ready, trust-driven and radically human organisations in an era defined by AI, upheaval and accelerating transformation.
Event organisers looking for a keynote that challenges, provokes and inspires will find Ricardo Semler’s comeback a rare opportunity — the voice who predicted the future of work decades before it arrived is stepping back onto the stage with an all-new perspective for 2026 and beyond.
For Ricardo’s Full Bio see below.
Topics:
1. Radical Leadership & Decentralised Power
Ricardo’s signature domain: eliminating hierarchy, redistributing power and trusting employees.
Ricardo Semler reveals how organisations thrive when leaders trade control for trust. Drawing on his groundbreaking Semco model, he shows how decentralised power, employee-chosen bosses and democratic decision-making create teams that are more engaged, innovative and accountable.
This is a fresh look at leadership, not commanding, but creating the conditions for people to do their best work.
2. High-Trust Organisations & Employee Autonomy
Ricardo Semler explores how trust transforms performance. Drawing from decades of Semco practice, he reveals how transparency, self-management and shared ownership create cultures where people operate with freedom — not fear.
This keynote shows leaders how to eliminate micromanagement, open information flows and build organisations where autonomy drives loyalty, innovation and results.
3. The Future of Work (Flexible, Self-Directed, Meaning-Driven)
Long before remote work and flexibility became global norms, Ricardo Semler was redefining how work should work. In this keynote, he shows why the 9–5 is obsolete and how self-organising teams, hybrid structures and asynchronous collaboration create more human, productive organisations.
A compelling look at how purpose-driven workplaces are shaping the future—and how leaders can build them now.
4. Change-Ready Organisations (His New 2026 Big Idea)
Ricardo Semler introduces his newest 2026 breakthrough: organisations must stop managing change and start being built for it. In this keynote, he challenges the entire change-management industry, arguing that true resilience comes from companies that are light, transparent, authentic and designed to adapt continuously.
He explains why Gen-Z shifts, AI disruption and market shocks require no panic when the organisational architecture is right — and how leaders can create workplaces that thrive in constant motion.
5. The Round Pyramid Model (New Structural Blueprint)
Ricardo Semler unveils his newest structural model, The Round Pyramid — a radical alternative to the traditional hierarchy. Built on concentric circles rather than rigid layers, this design replaces departments with agile cohorts, introduces rotating leadership roles, and even limits CEO terms to six months.
With AI-supported decision flows and an asset-light philosophy, the Round Pyramid shows how organisations can become faster, fairer, and dramatically more adaptable.
6. Radical Transparency & Psychological Safety
Drawing on his new Truth Scan framework, Ricardo Semler shows how transparency builds trust and how silence destroys organisations from within. This keynote explores bottom-up accountability, leadership integrity, and the cultural conditions that allow people to speak up safely.
A practical guide to creating workplaces where honesty fuels performance.
7. Innovation Through Autonomy
Ricardo Semler reveals how true innovation emerges when people are free to act, explore, and lead. Drawing on Semco’s history of employee-led creativity, he shows how teams become authors of strategy and how autonomy fuels emergent, ground-up innovation models.
A compelling case for giving people the mic — and watching new ideas take shape.
8. Culture as an Operating System
Ricardo Semler argues that culture isn’t a by-product of structure — it’s the system everything runs on. In this keynote, he explores how intentional cultural design, the removal of bureaucracy, and alignment around shared purpose create organisations that are naturally change-ready.
In this talk he provides a practical look at culture as the engine of performance, trust and adaptability.
9. Life–Work Integration & Human Well-Being
This talk is a modern evolution of Ricardo Semler’s classic philosophy, and here Ricardo talks about how work should enhance life—not consume it. He explores redesigning work around real human needs, the power of rest in driving productivity, and well-being as a core organisational strategy in an age of burnout and AI anxiety.
A refreshing, human-centred blueprint for sustainable performance.
10. Education Reinvention — The End of School
Drawing from Lumiar and his upcoming book, Ricardo Semler presents a bold reimagining of education. He argues for relevance-based, curiosity-driven learning ecosystems that replace standardised testing with autonomy, exploration and student governance.
From UnTethered Schools to the Relevance Project, Ricardo shows how we can prepare young people for a world defined by constant reinvention — not conformity.
11. AI x Human-Centric Organizations
Ricardo Semler explores how AI can strengthen — not replace — human capability. He outlines how organisations can design meaningful human–AI collaboration loops, why human judgment becomes even more valuable in an automated world, and what it takes to build structures that are truly AI-ready.
A forward-looking keynote on keeping humanity at the centre of technological transformation.
12. The End of Bosses / End of Forever (Relevance Project Philosophy)
Ricardo Semler introduces the philosophy behind his new trilogy, arguing that careers, relationships, and organisations all evolve in natural cycles — and shouldn’t be forced into permanence. This keynote explores how to design systems, workplaces, and lives guided by relevance rather than tradition, allowing people and organisations to renew themselves continuously.
A transformative lens on leadership, work, and human purpose.
13. The RoleUp Filter & Portfolio Workforce Design
Ricardo Semler presents his newest workforce transformation tool: The RoleUp Filter. This keynote unpacks how organisations can transition traditional employees into empowered contractors, deploy talent using AI-driven insights and build blended internal–external teams.
A practical look at the rise of portfolio careers — and how forward-thinking companies can harness them for agility and innovation.
14. Organizational Diagnostics, Truth Systems & Leadership Accountability
Using Ricardo’s Truth Scan methodology, Ricardo shows how organisations can hard-wire honesty, transparency, and accountability into their leadership. This keynote explores reputation analytics, early-warning systems for cultural decline and the tools that reveal whether leaders are truly trusted — or simply assumed to be.
A clear roadmap for institutionalising transparency and building organisations that stay healthy from the inside out.
Ricardo Semler shares the iconic Semco stories that transformed him into a global management icon. He recounts how the company grew 27% annually for decades, kept turnover at just 2%, and operated with systems where employees set their own salaries, voted for their bosses, and worked in full transparency.
A compelling set of lessons on what happens when leaders give up power, ego, and control — and let people run the company they believe in.
For more information on these topics reach out to his exclusive agent Rachel at Oration Speakers. Ricardo researches each and every company he speaks to and for and the final topic is always finalised that works best for the needs of the audience.
Books:
Maverick!: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace
Companies:
Training programs for consultants, corporate change makers and entrepreneurs who want to realize a Semco Style workplace.
Lumiar
Lumiar is an innovative, future-oriented school.
Semco Partners
Joint-Venture Catalysts for expansion in Brazil.
BIOGRAPHY
RICARDO SEMLER, 66: The man who ALMOST gave up
Ricardo Semler is known for many things, but what defines him best is that he gives up easily.
At age 24, as CEO of Semco, he gave up doing business with his largest client, one of the largest oil & gas companies in the world, because of its corruption. At 29, he gave up his role as President of the Federation of Industries in Brazil, the most powerful representative of business interests in the country, because he didn’t feel he could represent the desires of entrepreneurs.
On eight occasions, he resigned from the boards of Fortune 1000 companies, museums and NGOs when he felt that he was rubber stamping flawed strategies. At 31, he stepped away from a shoo-in election to become mayor of his native São Paulo (and a plausible path to the presidency) when he worried that his ego was getting in the way of the needs of the people.
At 36, and again at 40, and again at 43, he declined to become Cabinet Minister of Industry, Secretary of Education and finally, federal Minister of Education, all for the same reason. He’s declined 17 honorary doctorates. After selling more than two million books and climbing bestseller lists around the world, he’s given up on writing a sequel—despite 20 years of begging from publishers—because he had nothing new to say. Despite selling substantial companies for millions, he’s eschewed the traditional millionaire playthings: choppers, fractional private airplanes, and mega-yachts.
What has Ricardo done? Let’s see. He took a family business from 110 to 5,000 employees, grew profit by 14% a year every year for 25 years, reduced annual employee turnover to an unthinkable TWO PERCENT, and inaugurated a management philosophy that became the core of one of the Harvard Business Review’s most reprinted articles and a TED Talk seen by 4 million viewers, made him a leading voice at the Davos World Economic Forum and a case study used by 172 universities, and earned him a place among The Financial Times’ most important business thought leaders.
Despite the accolades, he’s never quit giving up. He became a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School and a Professor at MIT’s Sloan School, then walked away from both when he found that he was repeating himself. He gave up being Chairman of his own company when his employees—empowered by his own reforms to rate their bosses—anonymously lowered his rating.
From his iconoclast’s perspective, Ricardo has advised chairmen and CEOs—from the Discovery Channel to NASA, from one of the largest real estate companies in the world to the boards of General Motors, Chase Manhattan and Amazon—to rethink their pyramidal power structures. He has spent a lifetime pushing back against the mindless mantra “This is how it’s always been done” and holding everyone, especially himself, to a higher standard.
That’s the energy source behind his creation of a novel path in education, schools that “give up” on traditional and obsolete models and embrace a humanistic, tech-empowered, more effective way of teaching and learning.
Finally, 66 years of learning, discovery, and defiance of status in the service of people have led to this: The Relevance Initiative, a set of three upcoming books that propose a revolutionary, disruptive, dangerous new way to look at how we educate our children, run our companies, and even live our increasingly long lives: The End of School, The End of Bosses and The End of Forever.
After all these years, Ricardo Semler has something new to say, and he’s saying it—showing us all how to give up what doesn’t work, what doesn’t make us better and what doesn’t bring us happiness.