Former Lonely Planet executive on innovation, change and reinventing organisations.
Gus Balbontin has spent a career inside organisations being reshaped by technology — most visibly as Executive Director and CTO of Lonely Planet during the years the travel publisher was transformed by the rise of digital. That ringside view of disruption sits at the heart of how he speaks today: less theory, more lived experience of what change actually feels like from inside a leadership team.
Beyond his Lonely Planet years, Gus has been an entrepreneur, investor and advisor across startups and large corporates alike. He works with executive teams on how to build organisations that move faster, decide better, and stay close to the customers they're meant to serve. His perspective is shaped by a global background — born in Argentina, formed in Australia, working across continents — which gives him a distinctively non-parochial take on what's coming.
On stage, Gus is direct, energetic and refreshingly free of the buzzwords that usually crowd innovation keynotes. He hands audiences practical frameworks they can use the next day, paired with stories from the boardroom that make the point land. He's a strong fit for leadership offsites, strategy days and conferences where the room needs to leave thinking differently.
Gus Balbontin is a keynote speaker based in Victoria who speaks on business strategy, change management and innovation. Book through Executive Speakers Australia.
Gus isn’t about vague predictions - he’s about preparing you for whatever the future throws your way. As an “Alternative Futurist,” he’ll guide you through the trends that matter, with a sharp focus on what you can do now rather than later. Gus inspires audiences to start playing with novelty to increase their tolerance to change and pull the future towards us. Waiting for it to happen is a recipe for disaster.
Stop wasting time on speculation and start taking action.
Gus Balbontin will help your audience understand AI in simple terms, recognise how much we already use it today and play with some examples on how it can apply to your job, business or industry. He will help you cut through the hype to focus on what the real human impact is.
The battle scars he collected over the years supporting businesses and humans through the digital revolution, perfectly apply in today’s AI context. For example, we overestimated what the internet could do short term and simultaneously underestimated what it was going to do long term. Today you can’t run your business without internet, in future you won’t be able to run your business without AI.
You are probably thinking “I haven’t finished with my digital transformation and now I need to worry about AI transformation? Yes! If you are still paying the backlog of digital debt you are about to start piling up AI debt.
AI poses no danger, inaction does. The opportunity is open to those that act.
Gus dives deep into the fabric of team building, exploring how to create a culture of trust, psychological safety and accountability. Learn how to empower individuals to take responsibility and act with autonomy and discover the leadership traits necessary to harness the collective power of your team - even in the most uncertain circumstances and in the most complex distributed virtual offices.
Gus will guide you in understanding how self-awareness and individual behaviour shape the overall performance of your business.
In the relentless pace of today’s markets, corporate momentum can be your biggest enemy. Gus challenges you to break free from outdated, repetitive processes and embrace a more agile, entrepreneurial mindset. He’ll guide you in creating systems that support both established and emerging business models, transforming your organisation into a nimble force ready to adapt to any change. This keynote is your blueprint for thriving in the face of disruption.
You must solve more customer problems than business problems, if you want to stay relevant. Gus will help you shift your focus from internal struggles to external impact, showing you how to strip innovation down to its core - moving from unsolved to solved problems.
Creativity is scary because people judge it, curiosity is not. Let Gus help you focus your attention and energy to spark the entrepreneurial fuel everyone has inside. Gus brings practical tools to the table, helping you turn lofty ideas into immediate action and engage every member of your team in the innovation process.
Once you see Gus’ simple innovation models you will be surprised how much we over process innovation and try to control it with little return.
Gus lead a large global restructure and has been involved in many large corporate and small startup shake ups. Leading yourself and others through difficult times is something we can easily take our eyes off.
In a world where our brains are still wired for survival in the wild, leading in the modern business environment requires some serious counterintuitive thinking, specifically through tough times. Gus dives into the evolutionary challenges that make today’s rapid change so hard to handle and helps you accept and engage with practices that will get you and your business through disruption.
We received so much great feedback, one of our team who has been to over 20 similar conferences said Gus was the best speaker she had ever heard. We laughed and we were inspired, Gus was fantastic!Purple CFS 2025 Conference
Gus was an amazing speaker especially when he was on after the lunch break. He captivated the audience and had everyone in stitches. The feedback from our audience was extremely positive.Allianz
Gus was fun, interesting and provocative. He had us thinking for day.Rolleston P&T and Cricket Club
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