Emilio De Stefano

Emilio De Stefano's Biography

An experienced executive, entrepreneur and mechatronics engineer, Emilio has practiced in organisations ranging in size from start-ups all the way through to multi-national corporates.

Fascinated by the subjects of leadership, business transformation and success, Emilio is a highly enthusiastic speaker who knows how to inspire your audience to embrace the exciting opportunities that the rapidly changing world presents.

Emilio is passionate about inspiring your audience to think big, embrace change and take action! To play it safe just won’t work anymore. As Emilio demonstrates in his keynotes, tomorrow’s organisational success requires courageous leadership and a culture that values agility over old-fashioned stability.

Working at the forefront of the future of work, Emilio leverages his global consulting experience to share his insights into how disruptive forces such as digitisation, machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT) will either swallow your organisation up or be the reason it succeeds. Emilio’s objective is more than simply pushing you outside your comfort zone, it’s about expanding your comfort zone.

Returning from an Executive Education program at Stanford Graduate School of Business in the Californian summer of 2015, Emilio threw in his six figure pay packet and senior executive role to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

Having already co-founded Adelaide Gardening Group the year before, in 2015 Emilio started his second business De Stefano & Co, a boutique management consultancy firm which has since allowed him to share his knowledge and learnings with businesses, industry associations and government organisations around the globe.

Outside of these businesses, Emilio continues to mentor local start-ups and entrepreneurs.

With a passion for learning how things work and a desire to remain at the forefront of technological change, Emilio commenced his engineering career 15 years ago.

Engineering has provided him with the opportunity to work on state of the art technologies (including those for FA-18 fighter jets!), help his clients solve complex business challenges and travel the world. With numerous post-graduate engineering and business qualifications, Emilio has also chaired the national board of The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Australia and had the honour of being recognised with a number of awards for his contribution to the engineering profession at both the state and national level.

Emilio will inspire your audience to think big, embrace change and take action. With topics including disruption, leadership, innovation, the future of work, success and Millennials, his keynotes can be tailored to suit your exact requirements.

Speaking Topics Include

Success in a disruptive future - The pace of change has never been so frantic. Disruption has become the norm. Hear about what’s coming for your industry, how to prepare for it and how to make the most of the opportunities that these disruptive forces present for your organisation’s future success.

Key takeaways

Understanding the disruptive forces that will impact your industry and your leaders

Understanding what the future of work will look like

How playing it safe could well be the biggest risk of them all

How to make the most of your millennial talent to leverage the exciting opportunities that disruption presents

How to develop courageous people within your organisation to tackle disruption head on

How to develop a culture that can easily adapt to the challenges ahead

Playing it safe – are you risking your future? - In this keynote Emilio will inspire your audience to “become comfortable with the uncomfortable” and motivate them with his five easy to implement steps to increase their willingness to take calculated risks to get ahead and stay ahead.

Key takeaways

The critical relationship between success and failure

How playing it safe could well be the biggest risk of them all

The importance of embracing calculated risk-taking in our organisations as a way to get ahead and stay ahead

How to develop courageous people and a culture which cultivates courageous leaders

The five easy to implement steps to increase your audience’s willingness to take calculated risks and put themselves on the path to success

Leading Millennials into the future - In this keynote Emilio will inspire your audience to become future-proof modern leaders, those that can get the very best out of their Millennial workforce to ensure tomorrow’s organisational success.

Key takeaways

Understanding the challenges facing leaders including increasing uncertainty, increasing ambiguity, failing business models, disruption and the demands of millennials

Developing the kit of tools to thrive as a leader in the information age

Preparing leaders for success in a future that will be dominated by digitisation

The importance of trust, values, and culture in leadership

The art of decision making

Becoming the leader you want to be

The most important leadership trait of them all

Future careers in South Australia - A born and bred passionate South Aussie, in this keynote Emilio will fire up your audience, providing them with confidence in South Australia’s transitioning economy, insights into what the future of work will look like for the state and ways in which they can forge an outstanding career in South Australia.

Key takeaways

What the future of work looks like for South Australia and what it could mean for us all

The steps each and every one of us can take to build a successful career and “make it” in South Australia

The importance of goal setting, networking, being non-conventional and having the courage to take action in a conservative society

Flipping our traditional thinking in order to view the opportunities that South Australia’s challenges present

Lessons to be learnt from Silicon Valley, the parallels between Adelaide and Silicon Valley

South Australia’s transition to becoming an innovation economy

What each and every one of us can do to help make the transition to an innovation economy a reality

Becoming an entrepreneur - In this keynote Emilio shares his insights into how he made his decision to ditch his corporate gig to become a full-time entrepreneur and how we can all use the lessons learnt from a corporate career to escape the mundane ‘everyday’ life and achieve freedom through entrepreneurship.

Key takeaways

The practical steps we can all take to achieve success in our careers

Freeing ourselves of the mundane ‘everyday’ life and truly ‘building’ something

Taking the ‘plunge’ into entrepreneurship without betting the farm

Applying lessons from a corporate career to entrepreneurship

Making a difference in a world where age and experience are no longer a barrier

Becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable

Sticking it to the naysayers

How you too can take the ‘plunge’ no matter where you are in life