The Keynote Speaker

“Progress starts with change!” ​

Keynote speaker, change expert, psychologist and an exterminator of sacred cows: that is lecture speaker Dr Stephan Meyer. His curriculum vitae reflects exactly what he conveys with his rousing lectures: Change must be radical! Because progress only happens when sacred cows are slaughtered!

Even during his psychology studies in Würzburg, the inspiring speaker Dr. Stephan Meyer recognised that nothing is more complex than human beings and that very few people want to learn from their mistakes and constantly improve.

That’s why, from the very beginning, his motto was: “Rules of the game are there to be changed!” He switched to the University of RWTH Aachen and focused on business psychology in his main studies, researching what motivates people to be open to change.

After his studies, the change expert and keynote speaker Dr. Stephan Meyer made a career in a large internationally active management consultancy until he decided to switch to the world of finance and founded a subsidiary, similar to a start-up, at a bank. Since 2001, Dr. Stephan Meyer has been self-employed as a speaker and management consultant, serving corporate groups and SMEs in the financial, telecommunications, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors.

In his projects on the topics of modernisation, digital transformation and change management, Dr Stephan Meyer repeatedly encounters resistance. Most of the time, these are “sacred cows” that must not be touched. In his lectures, which are peppered with many practical examples, keynote speaker Dr Stephan Meyer proves to his audience that changes have to be radical and that sustainable progress only succeeds when employees and managers are willing to slaughter sacred cows.

Through his consulting projects, he always receives new impulses directly from the business world, which he incorporates into his practical lectures as a keynote speaker on the topic of change. His knowledge of human nature, which he combines with his knowledge from his psychology studies, allows him to communicate successfully and in a results-oriented manner with people at different hierarchical levels and to present solutions to challenges in a special way. Because as a speaker, management consultant and psychologist, Dr. Stephan Meyer has the ability to formulate complex contexts in an understandable and pictorial way. Coupled with his brilliant rhetoric and a dash of humour, the lectures of the change expert inspire his audience. Due to his technical affinity and his business administration-oriented studies, he is regarded across industries as the mediator between engineers and business people.

Dr Stephan Meyer is not only interested in a wide range of professional activities. He is also involved in voluntary projects, such as mentoring at the University of Würzburg, as a speaker on the GSA podcast or as a member of Mensa: the keynote speaker on the topic of change Dr. Stephan Meyer soaks up information, processes it and then forms his forward-looking opinion. The management consultant fundamentally rejects entrenched processes and ways of thinking and shows that progress always wins.

In 2019, he decided to take another exciting professional step and wrote his doctoral thesis at a British university on the topic of “Killing the sacred cow: Radical organisational change as seen through the eyes of change agents”. For this, he spoke with change makers on four continents and even with the British Secret Service. Dr. Stephan Meyer reveals how this comes together in his successful lecture “Almabtrieb der heiligen Kühe – freier Blick auf die Zukunft!” (The driving down of the sacred cow – a clear view of the future!).

Thanks to his forward-looking nature, his enthusiasm for innovation, change and the future, Dr Stephan Meyer is a welcome guest on numerous podcasts on business and future topics. In his own podcast “Der Wandel-Podcast” (The Change Podcast), the speaker on the topic of change also discovered his joy in journalistic work, which is why he enjoys publishing articles for companies and industry newspapers. In doing so, he always reflects his credo: “Progress starts with change!”