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Rohit Bhargava

Rohit Bhargava is an entertaining innovation and marketing expert, facilitator, and award-winning keynote speaker.

Meet Rohit Bhargava

Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He is the 3-time WSJ bestselling author of 8 books on marketing, trends, and how to create a more inclusive world. He is also well-known for his keynote and motivational speaking, keynoting in 32 countries around the world. Rohit Bhargava is available to be booked for corporate and private events. Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group today to inquire about Rohit Bhargava’s fees.

Want to book Rohit Bhargava for an event?

Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group at 215-510-6607 to book Rohit Bhargava for corporate or private events, keynote speeches, workshops, fireside chats, motivational speaking, or virtual appearances. Our agency will work directly with your organization and our keynote speakers to create an unforgettable event.

The Mollie Plotkin Group is the leading keynote speakers agency and entertainment bureau bringing excitement to audiences, clients, and employees. We represent subject-matter experts in every possible field, so whether we’re your partner in creating a memorable meeting, or your meeting planner’s secret weapon in securing the perfect keynote speaker, we’re in this with you.

Biography

Innovative Marketer

After graduating with an English major and studying screenwriting and poetry, Rohit Bhargava moved to Australia in 1999 at the start of the dot com boom and began a successful 15-year career as a brand and marketing strategist in the world of advertising. During his time working at two of the largest agencies in the world, Rohit built his career at a pivotal time in the world of marketing when digital tools were just emerging and a growing understanding of behavioral science was changing the way companies in all industries understood persuasion itself.

In 2004, Rohit became an early adopter of social media and started writing a marketing blog that would soon become one of the top 25 blogs in the industry, according to Ad Age magazine. Across 20 years, publishing thousands of posts, he continually introduced new groundbreaking ideas to the marketing world – from first inventing the concept of social media optimization (SMO) to publishing a manifesto for content curators that is now widely used in digital marketing courses across the world. In fact, he once sat in a meeting where a newly minted “senior digital strategist” explained the concept of SMO back to the room. As Rohit wrote the day after, “I should probably be honored. Having my own ideas quoted back to me a kind of flattery, right? At least now I know what being mansplained to feels like.”

Books

The growing popularity of his blog led Rohit to his first book deal in 2008. The book, Personality Not Included, was not a huge commercial success but was critically acclaimed, won a prestigious Gold Atticus award, and was adopted by many tech leaders like former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

After publishing three more books, Rohit decided to leave his role at Ogilvy in 2014 and founded a new independent publishing company called Ideapress Publishing with his wife Chhavi. His fifth book, Non-Obvious, was wildly successful, immediately hitting the Wall Street Journal bestseller list in early 2015 and propelling Rohit’s keynote speaking career to the next level.

The Non-Obvious Trends series would soon become his signature piece of thought leadership, with annual book editions for the next five years culminating in the international bestseller Non-Obvious Megatrends, which hit #1 on the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller list. To date, the entire series has more than 1 million readers and more than 28 international book awards including the Leonard L. Berry Marketing Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Business Book of the Year, a Gold Medal in the Axiom Awards, and the Pencraft Book of the Year. In total, Rohit has written nine books, 3 of which have become Wall Street Journal bestsellers.

Media

In addition, Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, and NPR regularly interview Rohit and feature him as an expert commentator. Rohit also writes a monthly column for GQ magazine in Brazil on technology and trends.

The most consistent connection for his fans though, has been his popular email newsletter, Non-Obvious Insights. In 2022, the Webby Awards (the Internet’s highest award) honored the Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter as the Best Email Newsletter, alongside winning newsletters from the New York Times and CNN.

Hire Rohit Bhargava

Bringing the insights from his books to live and virtual events as a keynote speaker, Rohit has delivered his signature keynotes at some of the most forward-looking organizations in the world including Intel, NASA, Disney, JP Morgan Chase, LinkedIn, Microsoft, American Express, CES, SXSW, the World Bank, Coca-Cola and hundreds of others.

Event planners and audiences have described Rohit as “a rare mix of scary-smart and super engaging” and “a master at weaving stories together.” Once, an attendee even described him as “hilarious, like a tech-savvy Robin Williams.”  At SXSW, the lines outside his popular Featured Session have wrapped around the entire Austin Convention Center and down the stairs to the lower level five years in a row. After his packed session one year, an attendee tweeted “He’s no Beyonce, but definitely worth standing in line for.”

Rohit is the perfect choice when you want to bring a diverse outside perspective from an engaging speaker who has real practical experience with relevance to your industry, a unique point of view, and a delivery style that blends inspiration with action.

Academia

Outside of his time on stage, Rohit also spent several years teaching popular courses on storytelling, persuasive speaking, and marketing at Georgetown University in Washington DC. He has also been invited to deliver guest lectures at many other prestigious schools including Stanford and Penn. Recently, he helped launch an Innovation Center at his alma mater – Emory University in Atlanta.

How to Hire Rohit Bhargava

Find out how to hire Rohit Bhargava to appear at your next event. Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group to inquire about Rohit Bhargava’s availability and cost. When booking Rohit Bhargava for an event, we need to know the type of venue and location the event will take place. Rohit Bhargava is a popular choice for corporate events, private events, and virtual events. So, you can click the Check Availability button or contact us and an MPG Rohit Bargava booking agent will get back to you within 48 hours.

Rohit Bhargava Booking Price

How much to book Rohit Bhargava depends on the type of event. So, the cost to hire Rohit Bhargava for corporate or private events is available by contacting a Mollie Plotkin Group Agent. Notably, Rohit Bhargava is available for conferences, festivals, private parties, and events. Just contact the Mollie Plotkin Group and tell the booking agent the proposed date, time, and location.

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Fill out the form to find out when Rohit Bhargava is available.

Upcoming Engagements

Our speakers are in high demand! View their upcoming events.

Dec 03 2024

Data & Revenue Management Conference – Keynote Speaker Will Guidara – Destin, FL

Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa
Jan 13 2025

IMSH 2025 – Keynote Speaker Nicole Malachowski – Orlando, FL

Feb 02 - 04 2025

Imaging USA 2025 – Opening Keynote Shola Richards – Dallas, TX

No event found!

Key Audience Takeaways

Why Hire Rohit Bhargava?

Two things make Rohit different. First, he always shares non-obvious, non-cliche, and actionable ideas. The one piece of feedback he always hears from attendees is that his talks are actionable. He doesn’t use canned presentations and heavily tailors his talk to each specific audience.

At the event itself, Rohit ensures he’s approachable off stage and makes a point to be part of the event – instead of running to and from the airport. When he commits to an event, he is invested in doing everything I can to help make it successful.

Below is a list of his keynote speaking topics.

 

How To Be A Non-Obvious Thinker (And See What Others Miss)

What if you could learn to think like a futurist? Unlike most talks about the future, this generous and inspiring keynote will reveal how anyone can learn to anticipate what is coming next. Using his signature fast-paced “non-boring” presentation style, trend curator Rohit Bhargava takes the audience behind-the-scenes of more than a decade of research to illustrate how his award-winning “Haystack Method” can help anyone be more innovative.

Based on his #1 WSJ bestselling Non-Obvious Book Series, this keynote also includes all-new insights from his latest trend research along with useful ideas for how to put those insights to work. The world needs more non-obvious thinkers. This talk will give you a roadmap to being one of them.

Key Takeaways:

  • Five actionable and immediately usable habits to broaden your perspective, be more creative, and see the world differently.
  • A better understanding of what trends are, what they aren’t, why they matter, and how you can start to identify trends and patterns of behavior.
  • Understand your future customer and how you can prepare your business to serve the needs customers haven’t demanded yet, but will one day.
  • Embrace a mindset that truly allows you to take ideas from many sectors and expertly apply them to your own roles and business.

 

7 Non-Obvious Trends Shaping the Future Normal

What does it take to identify world-changing trends that will actually last? For the past decade, Rohit Bhargava and Henry Coutinho-Mason have been on the front lines of the future—going into cutting-edge labs, private testing facilities, and invite-only showcases around the world. Now for the first time, this exclusive talk will reveal the most powerful stories and instigators that are already shaping humanity’s next decade.

From biophilic skyscrapers to generative AI to haptic interfaces, this keynote will offer a clear-eyed overview of the technology changing our world, while also the deeply human questions all this advancement will raise. Rather than offering “futurist theater” with obvious forgettable examples, this talk is updated with new stories – sometimes pulled from that morning’s news!

This is not a boring academic talk. Instead, it’s a pull-no-punches, always entertaining, constantly surprising, highly actionable, and deeply non-obvious glimpse into what the future will look like…and how each of us can train ourselves to anticipate big shifts before they happen. 

Key Takeaways:

  • A greater understanding of the fundamental forces of disruption that are shifting consumer behavior and beliefs across industries and what this means for them.
  • Create a strategy to take your organization into the future and navigate significant change or disruption either through industry shifts, restructures, pandemic effects, and/or new leadership.
  • Gain exposure to cutting-edge ideas and technologies that can help inform new initiatives and products.

 

The Art and Science of Non-Obvious Marketing (In a Skeptical World)

We are living in a time when it is harder to earn trust than ever before. People skip ads, mistrust brands, and demand transparency from the companies they buy from or work for. What does it take for any organization to be more believable? To win in a low-trust world, you need to be more human.

This funny and insightful keynote from award-winning marketing expert Rohit Bhargava will reveal the five keys to earning attention in a world filled with distractions. Whether you are looking to shift perceptions, improve sales, or simply inject more breakthrough thinking into your current efforts, this talk will help.

Through a digestible collection of entertaining case studies and unusual observations, Rohit will shine a spotlight on what actually works to command attention, build loyalty, and generate real results. Most importantly, the audience will leave with real, practical advice they can use immediately to put non-obvious thinking to work every day.

Key Takeaways:

  • Build a culture of trust and improve employee retention by inspiring your team to have more belief in the work they do and the leaders who lead them.
  • Understand the key principles of storytelling and how to apply them in a business context to improve communications and be more persuasive.
  • Insights on how trust is earned and lost in the middle of our modern “believability crisis” and techniques anyone can use to be more trustworthy and believable.
  • A leadership model for establishing more authenticity and trust among teams that can be replicated at all levels of the organization.

 

The Non-Obvious Method To Leading Diversity (When It’s Not Your Day Job)

What does it take to build a more inclusive team? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are hot topics right now but it’s not always easy to know the right way to address them. Inspired by the ambitious virtual summit Rohit held during the pandemic and the book Beyond Diversity he co-authored with Jennifer Brown, this approachable keynote reveals a new way to think about DEI.

Instead of blaming and shaming or focusing on a long list of “-isms,” this optimistic keynote makes DEI approachable for all leaders by starting with a story-driven look at how the world is changing today. Along the way, audiences will explore some of the biggest myths and realities of diversity, who is getting it right, and who isn’t. If you want to demystify DEI, start to make your organization more inclusive, and appeal to a more diverse group of customers, this keynote has the answer.

Key Takeaways:

  • Understand why building a more diverse and inclusive world matters and what is driving the current conversation.
  • Put DEI efforts into context and understand what matters most when it comes to creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace and company culture.
  • How to better identify instances of unconscious bias or unintentional discrimination and correct these moments or the policies that enable them.
  • Shift away from “blaming and shaming” and instead approach DEI from a place of positivity and optimism so no one feels forced or minimized in the process.

Client Testimony for Rohit Bhargava

Books

The Future Normal Book Cover
The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work and Thrive in the Next Decade

NEXT BIG IDEA BOOK CLUB 2023 MUST READ BOOK
2023 HOFFER BOOK AWARD - GRAND PRIZE FINALIST
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS - GOLD MEDAL WINNER

This is a handbook for visionaries. Making outlandish predictions about the future is easy. Predicting the future normal is far harder.

For the past decade, Rohit Bhargava and Henry Coutinho-Mason have been on the front lines of exploring the global forces shaping our future normal through their work independently leading two of the most successful trend consultancies in the world: TrendWatching and the Non-Obvious Company.

From donning full body haptic suits to sampling cultivated meat, their work has taken them into cutting-edge labs, private testing facilities, and invite-only showcases across the world. Now for the first time, they are teaming up to share a uniquely eye-opening vision of the future unlike any other.

Across thirty fast-moving chapters, The Future Normal spotlights dozens of ideas and instigators who are changing the world. From biophilic skyscrapers to generative AI, these stories offer an optimistic yet deeply human view of the next decade. Along the way, we also tackle some of the biggest ethical and societal questions raised by all this progress.

In this book, you’ll read about the ideas and instigators that are bringing about new ways to satisfy our fundamental needs and wants, changing not just their industries but also transforming our wider culture and society.

These are the stories of the future normal, and they are coming sooner than you think. For anyone looking to get ready, this book will empower you to seize the opportunities that lie ahead in this crucial decade.

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