VIEW ROD BECKSTROM'S VIDEO

Requires Windows Media Player or a player
that will  support "wmv" streaming video.

Hi Speed   (Cable, DSL, etc.)
Low Speed (Dial-up)

---

Outside of the business world, Rod designed and helped launch a nimble decentralized network of more than 1,300 CEOs worldwide working for peace and economic development. He also co-founded a network of Indian and Pakistani CEOs which is widely credited with finally opening the borders between the two countries in 2003.

Rod then used his knowledge of new network based organizational structures to co-author The Starfish and the Spider: the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. The book analyzes in an entertaining way how a new form of organizations and a new style of management, based on starfish networks, is taking the business, social and geopolitical worlds by storm.  It is the first book to explain the subtle yet incredible power of decentralized organizations. The implications for companies, leaders and the world are both profound and urgent.

Rod has advised government officials around the world. He has also given speeches on organizational structure, technology and leadership at the State of the World Forum, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Microsoft, Starbucks, Napster, Harvard University, Stanford University, and YPO Universities.

At the urging of Nobel Laureate Dr. William F. Sharpe, Rod co-authored the first book on the risk management theory of Value at Risk, An Introduction to VAR, which is now the fundamental framework for international banking capital reserve requirements.

He was the founding investor in Mergent Systems, a unique database design company which sold for two hundred million dollars seven months after founding.  Rod invested in eBay through a venture capital partnership and realized a 90,000% return on investment.

Rod is passionate about clean technology and environmental markets and serves on the board of Environmental Defense. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has a BA and MBA from Stanford.

---

CURRENT TOPICS >>>

When Rod speaks, organizational strategies change and lives are touched. Rod has been an active speaker since he was President of the undergraduate and graduate student body at Stanford. He loves public speaking and connecting with people. These are his current areas of focus:

---

The Starfish and The Spider:
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

In his innovative keynote, Rod teaches your audience that although spiders and starfish may look alike, starfish have a miraculous quality to them. Cut off the leg of a spider, and you have a seven-legged creature on your hands; cut off its head and you have a dead spider. But cut off the arm of a starfish and it will grow a new one. Not only that, but the severed arm can grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this feat because, unlike spiders, they are decentralized; every major organ is replicated across each arm.

But starfish don’t just exist in the animal kingdom. Rod’s powerful current day examples will explain how Starfish organizations are taking society and the business world by storm, and are changing the rules of strategy and competition. Your audience will learn how starfish organizations are organized on very different principles than we are used to seeing in traditional organizations. The principles that Rod will teach are break-through and vital to any business, organization or individual that wants to thrive versus die in the new marketplace.

Rod will clearly identify the traits and business practices of Spider organizations vs. Starfish organizations. How has Toyota leveraged starfish principles to crush their spider-like rivals, GM and Ford? How did tiny Napster cripple the global music industry? Why is free, community based Wikipedia crushing Encyclopedia Britannica overnight? Why is tiny Craig list crippling the global newspaper industry?

Spider organizations are centralized and are built around org charts; on the other hand, Starfish organizations tend to organize around a shared ideology or a simple platform for communication - around ideologies. And the Internet has helped them flourish.

So in today’s world Starfish organizations are starting to gain the upper hand. And there’s no reason that more traditional organizations can not learn and apply the Starfish principles. Your audience will find it essential to understand the potential strength of a Starfish organization.

---

Global Warming

Carbon Footprints: How You and Your Company Can Go Carbon Neutral (and Seize New Business Opportunities)

Why is global warming a problem and what can you do about it in your company and your life? What is your carbon footprint and how can you reduce it? How can your company capitalize on global warming business opportunities and become more sustainable? Why are sustainable companies often so profitable? How can you get there? How do carbon markets work? Why should we as a society have hope?

Rod has thirteen years of experience in global warming science, policymaking, business and investment. He is an acknowledged expert and was recently interviewed by CNBC News on what it means to be carbon neutral. He has served on the Board of Trustees of Environmental Defense since 1994 and recently came up with the idea of an Environmental Markets Network, a new national organization recently launched. He is a founder of Carbon Investments which has helped start several large scale carbon offset projects in Third World countries and which has invested in clean energy companies and funds.

---

Passion Networking

What are your passions? What are those of the people you work with or encounter? People can perform miracles when they are organized in small circles or groups around their passions. How did twelve citizens come together in London in the late 18th century to start a movement that led to the end of slavery? How did a few women organize in the U.S. and start a movement to win women's right to vote?

How did eleven CEOs meeting in 2003 help launch the current peace process between India and Pakistan, opening borders, airways, trade and telecoms where they had long been shut? Rod was a member of that original group of eleven and has studied and participated in many other amazing circles and networks on four continents. Why do some circles and networks thrive while others die? What are some of the traits of successful circles and networks? How can you start a circle? How can you build a network? Everyone has something to contribute. Learn how to unleash the unstoppable power of people's passions.

---

Additional Topics >>>

Leadership: How catalysts lead versus CEOs

Strategy: How your organization can learn, react and win in the new environment

Culture: Is your organization a starfish or a spider? What do you want it to be?