The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau
A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
In a volatile world, our biggest opportunity lies in revolutionizing our relationship with risk.
SUKHINDER SINGH CASSIDY is one of the most well-respected female tech executives in Silicon Valley. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, she’s the CEO of software company Xero and former president of StubHub. She’s helped scale companies like Google and Amazon, and founded theBoardlist: a premium talent marketplace for diverse leaders. But despite her many successes, she’s the first to admit her path hasn’t always been linear. In her new book Choose Possibility, Singh Cassidy reveals the many poor choices, misfires, and unexpected headwinds she’s encountered along her path—providing a thoughtful new perspective on risk-taking: what it is, what it isn’t, and how to master it to achieve lasting success.
“Sukhinder is one of Google and Silicon Valley’s most successful and well-respected leaders. In Choose Possibility, she brings her unique style of authenticity, optimism, and hustle to help anyone unlock their career potential.”— Eric Schmidt, Former Chairman & CEO, Google
Life is made up of a series of choices. But what do you do if one of those choices turns out poorly, even though it was carefully considered? How do you trust your decision-making skills to make the next right choice? And how do you continue to take risks, not once but many times? In her book Choose Possibility: Take Risks and Thrive (Even When You Fail), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy shares more than the highlight reel. With candor and honesty, she admits how the wrong turns she made along the way turned into some of the most valuable lessons and opportunities for success. Many of us live under the fallacy that if we make one big, daring risk, we will achieve either success or failure. It’s exactly this impression of risk that increases the likelihood that people will just stay put, says Singh Cassidy. In Choose Possibility, she debunks this myth, along with many others, proving that long-term success doesn’t come from making a singular “right” choice, but the willingness to face risk repeatedly. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that, in an increasingly volatile world, risk is unavoidable. Singh Cassidy’s engaging talks offer us a new, revolutionary framework for risk-taking: one that is not linear, leaves room for failure, and still gives us outsized returns over time. Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, declares, “Choose Possibility helps us see risk in an entirely new way. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy will inspire you to take small steps that can lead to extraordinary outcomes.”
Singh Cassidy is a leading technology executive and entrepreneur, board member, and investor with twenty-five years of experience founding and helping to scale companies, including Google and Amazon. She’s currently the CEO of Xero, a software platform for small businesses with over 3 million subscribers worldwide. She formerly served as the leader of StubHub, the premier consumer ticketing marketplace for live entertainment, which she and her team sold for $4 billion. Earlier in her career, Singh Cassidy built Google’s business throughout Asia Pacific and Latin America, and served as the business co-founder of fintech pioneer Yodlee. She is currently Founder and Chairman of theBoardlist, a premium talent marketplace for diverse leaders to be recommended and discovered for board and executive opportunities. She also serves as a board director at Urban Outfitters and Upstart, and as a member of the global advisory board of TIME’S UP. Previously, she has served as a board member at TripAdvisor, J.Crew, and as a strategic advisor to Twitter. Singh Cassidy has been profiled in Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The New York Times, and was once named one of Elle’s Power Women.
Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at Wharton 2024 "Top 40 Under 40" Business Professor Author, Femonomics (Forthcoming)
Performance psychologist Head of the MLB Players Association Mental Health Division Former Director of Mental Conditioning for the New York Giants Author of Life as Sport
Author of Rage Becomes Her and The Resilience Myth Award-Winning Journalist Co-Founder and Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project
CEO of Trend Hunter New York Times bestselling author of Create the Future
CEO of The Atlantic Former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED
Founder & Executive Chair of Jackman Reinvents Author of The Reinventionist Mindset
Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School Author of Alive at Work
Award-Winning Expert on Self-Leadership, Mental Health, and The Conscious Mind Bestselling Author of Chatter Faculty lead at the Eisenberg Family Depression Center
Wharton Professor Choiceology Podcast Host Bestselling Author of How to Change One of the Thinkers50
Author of Grit, the #1 New York Times Bestseller | Pioneering Researcher on Grit, Perseverance, and the Science of Success
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Creator of The 1619 Project | Executive Producer of the Emmy Award-Winning 1619 Project Hulu Docuseries | MacArthur Genius
Nike's Former Chief Marketing Officer | Author of Emotion by Design
CEO of The Atlantic | Former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED
Bestselling author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism | Harvard Business School Professor Emerita | Activist and scholar
The pandemic may have made many of us more risk-averse, but ironically, it’s also taught us an essential lesson about the role risk plays in our lives: whether we embrace it or shy away from it, in an increasingly volatile world, we will continue to encounter risk everywhere. Our biggest opportunity is to become agile and adept at taking risks to grow—treating it like a repeatable process we can practice, not a one-off event.
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is no stranger to risk. One of the most well-respected female tech executives in Silicon Valley, she has taken hundreds of personal and professional risks throughout her career. And what she’s come to realize is that success does not come from making one singular “correct” or “big” decision; rather, it comes from tackling a series of small choices, aimed at optimizing future possibilities.
What the world needs is a new paradigm, says Singh Cassidy. A risk-taking framework that can help each of us have a healthy, proactive, and ongoing relationship with risk in order to unlock our own impact. In this fascinating presentation, she shows us how we can build that paradigm, using deeply personal stories alongside a simple set of frameworks anyone can understand. Audiences from every walk of life will leave this talk inspired to rethink their relationship with risk and find new growth: whether it’s managing change, reimagining work, or taking their careers to the next level.