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Nadya Zhexembayeva

Founder and Chief Reinvention Officer, the Reinvention Academy

Called ‘The Reinvention Guru’ (In Ventures magazine) and ‘The Queen of Reinvention’ (TEDx Navasink), Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva is a business owner, educator, speaker and author — specializing in reinvention.

Nadya is the creator of Chief Reinvention Officer method – and now this approach to transformation and renewal can work for you.

As a business owner, Nadya oversees a group of companies active in real estate, investment, and consulting. As a consultant, Nadya has helped such organizations as The Coca-Cola Company, ENRC PLC, IBM, CISCO, Erste Bank, Henkel, Knauf Insulation, Vienna Insurance Group and many others to reinvent their products, processes, and leadership practices.

Nadya also appreciated an opportunity for corporate experience when a long-term client, a 75,000-employee mining and metals company, ENRC PLC, invited her to join the executive suite to curate business transformation efforts. From 2013 to 2016, Nadya oversaw all aspects of the transformation as the company went from public to private and from a financial to a hands-on operational holding under the new brand, ERG. She continues to support the Group in an advisory role.

As an educator, Nadya personally contributed to the development of nearly 5,000 executives from over 60 countries and 20 industries via small group executive education sessions, custom-made seminars, and long-term corporate reinvention projects.

She served as the Coca-Cola Chaired Professor of Sustainable Development at IEDC- Bled School of Management, an executive education center based in the Slovene Alps, where she continues to teach courses in leadership, strategy, change management, design thinking, and sustainability. In addition to IEDC, Nadya has taught in other business schools, including CEDEP (France) and IPADE Business School (Mexico).

As a speaker, Nadya has shared her insights with audiences worldwide through keynotes, panel presentations, and workshops. She has delivered three TEDx talks in Austria, Slovenia and the US. Over 100,000+ professionals saw Nadya speak publicly.

Nadya is a member of the Resourcefulness Advisory Board at OMV, an oil and gas company, as well as a member of the Advisory Board of Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. She also serves on the Board of Challenge:Future, a global student think-DO-tank and innovation competition that unites 35,000 members from 242 countries and territories.

As an author, Nadya has written two books (“Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage” in 2011 and “Overfished Ocean Strategy: Powering Up Innovation for a Resource-Deprived World” in 2014) and contributed to five others. In an effort to reinvent corporate approaches to sustainability strategy, Nadya and her co-author Chris Laszlo coined the concept ‘embedded sustainability’, which was virtually non-existent when they started in 2009. Today, it produces 25+ million Google search results and has become a staple for corporate sustainability efforts.

Nadya received her BA in management and BA in psychology from Hartwick College and her PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University.

A daughter of Kazakhstan, Nadya and her family split their life between the US and Eurasia.

Nadya Zhexembayeva is tagged in 7 assets.
Video
From Resistance to Buy-In: Three Science-Based Secrets for Making Change Stick

Traditionally, culture is understood to have three layers: the most visible layer - the artifacts; a partially visible layer - the behaviors; and a deep, often unseeable layer - our values and beliefs. Organizations often think that people don't move... View More

Slides
From Resistance to Buy-In: Three Science-Based Secrets for Making Change Stick

Traditionally, culture is understood to have three layers: the most visible layer - the artifacts; a partially visible layer - the behaviors; and a deep, often unseeable layer - our values and beliefs. Organizations often think that people don't move... View More

Video
How Brands Can Build a Purpose Movement by Prioritizing People

Whether your organization is in the early stages of defining purpose internally, or working on external campaigns that apply purposeful storytelling for consumers to understand and act on, this session will provide tactical examples of how leaders ca... View More

Video
How Brands Can Build a Purpose Movement by Prioritizing People

Whether your organization is in the early stages of defining purpose internally, or working on external campaigns that apply purposeful storytelling for consumers to understand and act on, this session will provide tactical examples of how leaders ca... View More

Video
How Brands Can Build a Purpose Movement by Prioritizing People

Whether your organization is in the early stages of defining purpose internally, or working on external campaigns that apply purposeful storytelling for consumers to understand and act on, this session will provide tactical examples of how leaders ca... View More

Slides
How Brands Can Build a Purpose Movement by Prioritizing People

Whether your organization is in the early stages of defining purpose internally, or working on external campaigns that apply purposeful storytelling for consumers to understand and act on, this session will provide tactical examples of how leaders ca... View More

Video
Why and How Brands Need to Equip Themselves for Continuous Reinvention

Business strategy and innovation expert Nadya Zhexembayeva will synthesize lessons from her comprehensive research and experience with reinvention and share compelling reasons for why brands should seriously consider reinventing themselves from scrat... View More

Upcoming Events

October 13-16, 2025
SB'25 San Diego
US Event
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March 18-19, 2025
SB'25 Tokyo Marunouchi
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April 9-10, 2025
SB Member Network: Accelerating Good Growth Spring Member Meeting
Member Event
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