Meet
Adam Leipzig
Adam Leipzig is driven by curiosity, and by a lifelong belief that creativity, when structured with purpose, can change the world. Over a career that spans film, theater, publishing, and education, he has built a reputation for turning ideas into movements and art into impact.
"It should work." I've heard those three words in executive suites for thirty years.
Not long ago, I sat in a closed-door session with board members from a dozen companies across AI, technology, manufacturing, and global enterprise. Each of them was clear about what they wanted strategically. Yet everyone was struggling to get their company to do what seemed obvious to them. They were perplexed. It should work. And it wasn't.
I've been in versions of that room for thirty years. Smart, entrepreneurial, well-meaning people, and a chasm between what they perceive and what their organizations do. That chasm is what drives me. When it closes, organizations run smoothly, manage change, produce better work, and better serve the people they exist to serve. Every organization exists because there are people to serve and a world to make better.
I came to this through a fusion of business and creativity. As a senior executive at Walt Disney Studios and then president of National Geographic Films, I was responsible for investment in creative work and the revenue it produces: more than 40 films, over $2 billion in revenue on $300 million invested. Before that, I helped develop and open the Los Angeles Theatre Center, a four-theatre performing arts complex in downtown Los Angeles, which taught me to build something larger than any single project, across disciplines and media.
For fifteen years, I've served as a professional faculty member at Berkeley Haas. I don't teach media. I train MBAs and senior executives to share their message in ways the people and entities around them can understand. Which really means: Sharing their meaning. I've worked with more than 10,000 executives, entrepreneurs, board members, and creative artists, and advised leaders at the largest technology companies in the world ,sovereign wealth funds, and regulators.
Collectively, these experiences led me to devise one formula: Quality × Acceptance = Effectiveness. It's multiplicative. A brilliant strategy no one accepts is worth nothing. If you somehow convince people to accept something of low quality, the outcome will evaporate rapidly. The Signal System is how I find where a strategy stops being transmitted to the people who have to act on it, and in most organizations, I can do that in a day.
That's also why I wrote my latest book, Fearless Persistence: a bridge between intent and impact. I wrote it for creative people first. Business leaders have taken it up faster than I expected.
"Fearless Persistence is the most important business book in the past 10 years, essential reading for CEOs, founders, senior leaders, and board members making long-horizon decisions when progress is uncertain and the stakes are high."
— Joan Amble, board member, Zurich Insurance and Booz Allen Hamilton
"Leipzig's intention to provide creatives with a roadmap for realizing their full potential spills over to millions of individuals facing similar everyday business challenges."
— Michael Litt, founding partner of FrontPoint Partners and Managing Partner of Paddlefish Partners
Today I work closely at the digital and AI frontiers: governance, optimization, acceleration. Organizations are being asked to change faster than ever, and the chasm between decision-makers and the front lines is widening. At a time when the world is increasingly uncertain, exceptional results carry more weight and value than ever. That's where I want to be useful to you. We have our work to do.
Request an Executive Conversation
A 45-minute call to look at one strategy you're currently trying to land, and where it's most likely getting lost.