Kathleen Hicks
Kathleen Hicks – Special Competitive Studies Project
Kathleen Hicks
Keynote Speaker
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense (2021-2025)
From geopolitics to business, competition is fierce, and uncertainty prevails. Kathleen Hicks taps her unique background across international affairs, strategy, technology, and leadership to bring audiences insider stories and candid perspectives drawn from her time at the top of the Defense Department, in the White House Situation Room, and at the boardroom table.
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Kathleen Hicks oversaw the Defense Department’s daily operations at a time of both urgent challenges and long-term geopolitical competition. A trained strategist and natural team builder, Hicks gained the confidence of four-star generals and senior officials to advance a disciplined set of priorities at the speed and scale required by the moment. Working together, they transformed one of the world’s largest and most storied bureaucracies by speeding the delivery of capability, reforming business operations, enhancing talent management, and improving employee resilience. Notably, Hicks leveraged technology to improve compute, triple investment in AI, and launch the Replicator Initiative, which proved vital to the broad adoption of responsible autonomy. No matter their sector, audiences will learn from Hicks’ stories of collaborative disruption: leading people and strengthening innovative cultures to succeed amid rapid change. They will also hear geopolitical insights that can help their organizations navigate the evolving state of global affairs and America’s place in the world.
Featured Videos
Kathleen Hicks
Kathleen Hicks – The New Defense Landscape
Kathleen Hicks
Kathleen Hicks – Special Competitive Studies Project
Kathleen Hicks’s Speech Topics
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Leading Through Uncertainty
Uncertainty is a defining feature of the global landscape. It equally dominates the corporate boardroom and clouds leaders’ direction at all levels. Uncertainty can be debilitating, breeding poor decision-making and unhealthy cultures. In this talk, Kathleen Hicks will help leaders and organizations learn how to prepare for uncertainty and navigate its effects, creating unseen opportunity in the process. The talk will address how to build resilience within your ranks, keep your team’s eyes trained on your North Star, and flex your strategic planning muscles to innovate in uncertain times.
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Innovating at Scale
What does it take to shake up the status quo, energize your team, and deliver wins? No matter how large or complex your organization, or how risk-averse your culture, you can map a path to success—even to changing the game itself. Kathleen Hicks will share her lessons on collaborative disruption to accelerate innovation while keeping mission and people at the heart of your story.
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The Implications of Our Changing Geopolitics
Yogi Berra has never been more right: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” This keynote offers Hicks’ sought-after insights on the state of the global order and America’s role in the world. She describes the key factors shaping economics, security, governance, and society. From the boardroom to the battlefield, Hicks will show why we need to let go of the false promise of prediction in favor of honing our strategic planning and crisis-management capabilities.
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Defense Innovation, Industrial Capacity, and the Changing Character of War
The character of warfare is changing. These shifts owe much to economic, technological, and geopolitical trends that have unfolded over decades, but they have been propelled by Russia’s war in Ukraine, the rapid growth of Chinese military capability, and the U.S. response to both. A broad consensus now exists within the United States and among its allies on the need to dramatically improve our ability to speed the delivery of military capabilities at scale. In this address, Kathleen Hicks will discuss what is changing in the character of war, the relative advantages of key states, and the policies and investments needed to unlock U.S. and allied innovation potential. She will discuss a broad cross-section of sectors, including advanced manufacturing, autonomy, robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum sensing, space, and logistics.
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