Gus Balbontin

Gus Balbontin's Biography

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. Former Executive Director and CTO of Lonely Planet Gus Balbontin is one of them. He’s an investor, entrepreneur, founder and explorer who has spent two decades helping businesses adjust strategies, products, services, culture and individuals to better deal with rapid and regular changing markets.

As the former Executive Director and CTO of Lonely Planet, Gus led one of the most loved brands in the world through significant disruption. Easier said than done, trust me. Gus remains heavily involved with the startup scene around the world as a founder, investor and advisor. In his spare time, he’s the Entrepreneur in Residence at Victoria University.

Gus will delve deep into the digital transformation of the past two decades, sharing stories of how so many companies mishandled this seismic shift and how today’s business leaders can capitalise on the disruption that’s still occurring today.

Born and bred in wild Patagonia, Gus Balbontin never allowed his small town and humble beginnings get in the way of his big dreams. A healthy disrespect for authority and a severe case of fomo (fear of missing out) landed him in Australia at the young age of 17.

By the age of 22 he had dropped out of uni, hitchhiked South America, set up his first business and landed his dream job at Lonely Planet. Fast forward a few more years and he was leading the company globally, working with companies such as Google X, Nokia and Amazon on the latest technology, creative cultures and high performing teams.

Seeking a change from corporate life, he hung up his boots as the Executive Director and CTO of Lonely Planet and decided to move back to his entrepreneurial roots, becoming an investor, founder and mentor across the start-up ecosystem in Melbourne. He loves sharing a story, but loves even more, knowing those stories make a difference to people, helping them in their own business and life.

Over the last 3 years Gus has presented to audiences of 10 across regional Australia and New Zealand, to audiences of 10,000 across North America, Europe, South America and Asia. To him there’s no difference. Small, large, private, public, board room to mail room, his lessons hit a chord, his simplicity disarms you, his energy infects you and his counterintuitive way of looking at the world will motivate you to do things different.

Often thought as futurist, not because he predicts the future, but instead because he helps you focus on what you can control to deal with any future. Still want to talk trends? Sure! He loves as much as the next person trying to imagine a world run by AI, but he warns that getting too distracted with future guesses will only take time away from you and your company to actually do something about the future.

He will blow you away with energy and insights into the transformation, struggles and successes of one of the most loved brands in the world.

Speaking Topics Include

Counterintuitive Leadership

Our brains have evolved over 2.5million years to deal primarily with hunter gathering, only in the last few thousand years, our brains have been required to deal with a different context to hunter gathering and in the last few hundred with a speed of change that we are biologically incapable of keeping up.

This slow and incompatible biological evolution of our brains is entirely at odds with our current business environment and requires us to operate in what often seems a counter intuitive way.

The Speed of biological evolution is slower than the speed of technological advancement. This poses a serious challenge to our species.

Leadership in today’s business therefore requires us to behave counterintuitively…let me expand on this and show you how important being aware of this simple but powerful concept is.

Cultures of trust and accountability

Cultures of trust, psychological safety, autonomy and action. What does it take to treat everyone like an adult and feel responsible for change.

The fabric of team building and how to achieve high performance.

The leadership traits needed to harness the collective power of individuals and help them collaborate and cooperate in uncertain circumstances.

The importance of understanding self and how businesses start with each individual.

If we can hack the way our brain works and how we respond and behave we can change the culture of a place. After all, it is the sum of our behaviours and decisions that forms the performance of a business or a team.

Unlocking agility and adaptability

The challenges of corporate momentum and how to break traditional, repetitive business processes in favour of agile and more entrepreneurial models.

How to create structures and systems capable of supporting established AND emerging business models simultaneously.

Transforming industries, businesses, departments, teams and individuals to become more adaptable and succeed in rapid changing markets.

Customer focus and activating innovation

The importance of focusing on the customer and not business problems and the dangers of falling in love with your product and service

The power of simplifying innovation to its core: moving from an unsolved problem to a solved problem.

Practical tools to help turn the often vague concept of innovation into immediate action and how to involve everyone across the business or industry in the process.  -  We all have a role to play.

How our brain has evolved primarily to hunter-gather and not for current speed of advancement. We are at odds with our own instincts. Gus will help you love change and become aware of your instinctual rejection to change.

Future trends

Discussing future trends with an emphasis on what we can do now rather than what we could do later.

Spend less time guessing and more time doing something about the future. Talk is cheap, action difficult.

Gus comes from the future which helps!!!