Dean DeBiase
Inspiring audiences to become Rebooters—transforming companies, careers, and lives—and empowering their organizations to drive growth at entrepreneurial speeds with more innovative can-do cultures.
“Dean inspires audiences to become Rebooters, empowering themselves and organizations to drive entrepreneurial-innovation and growth, through purpose-led leadership and collaborative can-do cultures that transform companies, careers, and lives.”
CEO Keynoter - https://www.youtube.com/user/deandebiase
Since starting his first company at age 14, Dean has been challenging what is with what could be. Often called a “Rebel with a Cause”, Dean has been on a lifelong learning journey, discovering and sharing how to reboot companies, leaders, careers, and lives. A popular walk-the-talk speaker, his keynotes share secrets and relatable stories about how people can transform themselves into Rebooters—and empower their organization to drive growth at entrepreneurial speeds with a more innovative can-do culture.
A WSJ Best-Selling Author, Dean is a Forbes and Fortune Contributor, a frequent media guest and the Host of The Reboot Chronicles, a popular CEO podcast that has interviewed hundreds of leaders—unpacking their untold stories to help audiences reboot their organizations and themselves. He is a co-author of the best-selling book The Big Moo with Seth Godin—and as a top expert on the power of partnerships, his next book, Dancing with Startups, will prepare leaders for the revolutionary decade ahead.
Named “Growth Guru” by Inc., Dean’s wheelhouse is creating and scaling what’s next. But unlike most entrepreneurs, he learned by starting ventures inside corporations: as FedEx’s youngest Managing Director, he helped build one of the largest startups in history; at AT&T he led the world’s first online social media games company; at Anixter, he started four firms, one inventing technology that changed the Cable industry forever; and at LG, he created broadband modems that killed dialup, enabling the $1T streaming industry.
At a pinnacle career point, a serendipitous encounter with ousted Apple CEO Steve Jobs, convinced Dean to risk everything. He left his corporate life, moved his family to Silicon Valley, and joined the entrepreneurial movement. Rebooting himself, he became an award-winning serial CEO—leading a dozen companies through diverse phases—from expansion, M&A, and IPO to turnaround, roll-up spin-out, takeover and divestiture—creating hundreds of products, thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars of revenue, value, and capital.
Dean started Reboot Partners to bring his entrepreneurial-growth expertise to leaders of large enterprises—with roadmaps that help them partner with startups to rethink innovation, competitiveness, and results. A trusted advisor to CEO teams, his counsel and keynotes help tackle their most challenging issues, seize emerging market opportunities, and advance talent and new venture growth.
Practicing what he preaches, Dean delivers real-world perspectives that motivate people to shift from waiting for permission mindsets to taking charge of their future. Audiences enjoy his take on navigating the new complexities of work—from formulating hybrid roles and upgrading credentials to surviving setbacks, leveraging the remote work era, and thriving in the worldwide gig/creator economy.
Dean brings operating experience to the stage, drawing on his inclusive engagement-culture leadership style that attracts, builds, and inspires multi-generational/multi-national groups. Dean reveals how his empowered teams create all new markets, upend status-quo brands, and disrupt competitive landscapes. His teams have been recognized for developing industry-shaping products, services, and brands across sectors—including AI, advertising, cars, cloud, dating, games, messaging, Metaverse, music, 3D printing, search, social media, technology, telecom, talent, retail, SaaS, software, TV, and Web3—that transformed industries, economies, and societies.
Inspired by his CEO guest-host episode appearance on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice, Dean created a Kellogg School of Management course—that is never held in a classroom and students love—where he advises and coaches teams to create new products for Fortune 1000’s, with many launched into market. Refreshingly direct, his thoughtful talks are void of corporate-speak, and rated as bold and actionable, when speaking to the world’s top executive audiences at leading institutions, including the University of California Berkeley Hass School of Business, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Kellogg/Northwestern, and University of Chicago.
Weaving benefits of civic duty into his talks, Dean is an active community leader and a Co-founder of 1871, the world’s largest business incubator, which he delivered a TED Talk on at the UN—providing a blueprint for the rebirth of cities. Dean is a government advisor and coach to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and National Science Foundation (NSF) and also serves on task forces addressing innovation and competitiveness policy in cooperation with various agencies, commissions, the U.S. Congress, and The White House.
Reboot Keynotes (Descriptions upon request)
§ AI Will Reboot Your Industry, Your Organization and You: How to Join the AI Revolution
§ Dancing with Startups: How to Start Enabling/Embedding/Separating/Engaging
§ Disrupting the Disruptive Disruptors: How to Leverage Build/Buy/Borrow Optionality
§ Never Leave Serendipity to Chance: Empowering Rebel Roles - Spotters/Planners/Builders/Sustainers
§ Finding Your Reboot Purpose: The Power of AND Leadership - Fun/Money/Impact
§ Reboot Your Organization: Focusing on People/Platform/Passion Reboot Zones
§ Uber Yourself Before You Get Kodaked: Seizing the Entrepreneurial Movement and AI Gig Economy
Reboot Institute Certification Workshops and Master Classes (Descriptions upon request)
§ Re-Boot Camp: How to become a Rebooter – Discovering new personal, organizational and partnership roles
§ AI: How to seize what’s next to competitively shift by TTT (Transformation Through Technology)
§ BBB: How to unnaturally grow faster by DDD (Disrupting Disruptive Disruptors) through BBB (Build/Buy/Borrow)
§ Reboot Rebels: Advanced Master Class to take Your Organization and Yourself to the Next-Level
§ Custom workshops and boot camps
Rebooter Audiences:
Dean has delivered talks to thousands in a variety of settings, including company employee and client/partner events, professional associations and industry conferences, governments and institutions, non-profits, academic settings and commencements.
"Dean is a dynamic speaker who delivered a remarkable commencement at our college. You expect keynoters to inspire and exhort students to their next goals, but Dean took this to a new level, providing a rare glimpse into the future and how to thrive in it. Our graduates, faculty and parents seemed to be on the edge of their seats as he unveiled his life journey, from graduating High School early to becoming a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. They most appreciated how he put himself in their shoes, with relevant, humorous and memorable stories about how to prepare for the turbulent job market being disrupted by technology. Dean was our top speaker". Jerry Weber, College of Lake County
"Dean is an absolutely amazing and engaging keynote speaker that our audience not only enjoys repeatedly–but they also receive strong value from his educational and entertaining content. His talks are highly impactful and his MC capabilities are world-class with just the right amount of humor that our audiences need, which is why I invite him back every year to speak and MC our flagship programs at The National Press Club and Stanford University" Robert Rodriquez, Security Innovation Network
"Dean inspires audiences with cutting-edge secrets from the hybrid world where the Entrepreneurial Movement meets the realities of global business. He delivers keynotes with a motivating, entertaining and humorously fun punch, leaving audiences enlightened, energized and armed with Reboot Rules and Dancing with Startups insights they can use to impact their business and personal life." Julie Anixter, Tom Peters Company
"Dean is a great speaker, he is a master at engaging as well as entertaining audiences, making business-relevant points, while carefully tailoring his content and style to the audiences and objectives of our programs." Rob Wolcott, Clareo Partners
"There are only a handful of people like Dean who can authoritatively navigate the complex entrepreneurial movement, while facilitating unlikely meet-ups and partnerships between some of the largest and smallest companies across the world. Innovative leaders from multi-national corporations rely on his keen ability to vet precise varieties of emerging growth companies, from Silicon Valley to New York and Europe to Asia, and bring them together through the development of unique partnerships, new ventures or investment relationships.
More importantly and impactful, is Dean is a great keynote speaker and summit facilitator. On a tour stop of Dean's signature "Dancing with Startups" series his team not only curates impactful sessions with entrepreneurial talent from the smartest stealth companies, incubators and accelerators, but he also commands an eclectic audience of the top civic, government, academic, financial, business and thought leaders from the local ecosystem. This unique platform has been extremely valuable in broadening our reach and effectiveness while helping us to accelerate the execution of our innovation programs." Sonny Garg, Exelon
"Dean, there is nobody like him to take your company to the next level"
Donald Trump, The Celebrity Apprentice
“Dean inspires audiences to become Rebooters, empowering themselves and organizations to drive entrepreneurial-innovation and growth, through purpose-led leadership and collaborative can-do cultures that transform companies, careers, and lives.”
CEO Keynoter - https://www.youtube.com/user/deandebiase
Since starting his first company at age 14, Dean has been challenging what is with what could be. Often called a “Rebel with a Cause”, Dean has been on a lifelong learning journey, discovering and sharing how to reboot companies, leaders, careers, and lives. A popular walk-the-talk speaker, his keynotes share secrets and relatable stories about how people can transform themselves into Rebooters—and empower their organization to drive growth at entrepreneurial speeds with a more innovative can-do culture.
A WSJ Best-Selling Author, Dean is a Forbes and Fortune Contributor, a frequent media guest and the Host of The Reboot Chronicles, a popular CEO podcast that has interviewed hundreds of leaders—unpacking their untold stories to help audiences reboot their organizations and themselves. He is a co-author of the best-selling book The Big Moo with Seth Godin—and as a top expert on the power of partnerships, his next book, Dancing with Startups, will prepare leaders for the revolutionary decade ahead.
Named “Growth Guru” by Inc., Dean’s wheelhouse is creating and scaling what’s next. But unlike most entrepreneurs, he learned by starting ventures inside corporations: as FedEx’s youngest Managing Director, he helped build one of the largest startups in history; at AT&T he led the world’s first online social media games company; at Anixter, he started four firms, one inventing technology that changed the Cable industry forever; and at LG, he created broadband modems that killed dialup, enabling the $1T streaming industry.
At a pinnacle career point, a serendipitous encounter with ousted Apple CEO Steve Jobs, convinced Dean to risk everything. He left his corporate life, moved his family to Silicon Valley, and joined the entrepreneurial movement. Rebooting himself, he became an award-winning serial CEO—leading a dozen companies through diverse phases—from expansion, M&A, and IPO to turnaround, roll-up spin-out, takeover and divestiture—creating hundreds of products, thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars of revenue, value, and capital.
Dean started Reboot Partners to bring his entrepreneurial-growth expertise to leaders of large enterprises—with roadmaps that help them partner with startups to rethink innovation, competitiveness, and results. A trusted advisor to CEO teams, his counsel and keynotes help tackle their most challenging issues, seize emerging market opportunities, and advance talent and new venture growth.
Practicing what he preaches, Dean delivers real-world perspectives that motivate people to shift from waiting for permission mindsets to taking charge of their future. Audiences enjoy his take on navigating the new complexities of work—from formulating hybrid roles and upgrading credentials to surviving setbacks, leveraging the remote work era, and thriving in the worldwide gig/creator economy.
Dean brings operating experience to the stage, drawing on his inclusive engagement-culture leadership style that attracts, builds, and inspires multi-generational/multi-national groups. Dean reveals how his empowered teams create all new markets, upend status-quo brands, and disrupt competitive landscapes. His teams have been recognized for developing industry-shaping products, services, and brands across sectors—including AI, advertising, cars, cloud, dating, games, messaging, Metaverse, music, 3D printing, search, social media, technology, telecom, talent, retail, SaaS, software, TV, and Web3—that transformed industries, economies, and societies.
Inspired by his CEO guest-host episode appearance on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice, Dean created a Kellogg School of Management course—that is never held in a classroom and students love—where he advises and coaches teams to create new products for Fortune 1000’s, with many launched into market. Refreshingly direct, his thoughtful talks are void of corporate-speak, and rated as bold and actionable, when speaking to the world’s top executive audiences at leading institutions, including the University of California Berkeley Hass School of Business, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Kellogg/Northwestern, and University of Chicago.
Weaving benefits of civic duty into his talks, Dean is an active community leader and a Co-founder of 1871, the world’s largest business incubator, which he delivered a TED Talk on at the UN—providing a blueprint for the rebirth of cities. Dean is a government advisor and coach to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and National Science Foundation (NSF) and also serves on task forces addressing innovation and competitiveness policy in cooperation with various agencies, commissions, the U.S. Congress, and The White House.
Reboot Keynotes (Descriptions upon request)
§ AI Will Reboot Your Industry, Your Organization and You: How to Join the AI Revolution
§ Dancing with Startups: How to Start Enabling/Embedding/Separating/Engaging
§ Disrupting the Disruptive Disruptors: How to Leverage Build/Buy/Borrow Optionality
§ Never Leave Serendipity to Chance: Empowering Rebel Roles - Spotters/Planners/Builders/Sustainers
§ Finding Your Reboot Purpose: The Power of AND Leadership - Fun/Money/Impact
§ Reboot Your Organization: Focusing on People/Platform/Passion Reboot Zones
§ Uber Yourself Before You Get Kodaked: Seizing the Entrepreneurial Movement and AI Gig Economy
Reboot Institute Certification Workshops and Master Classes (Descriptions upon request)
§ Re-Boot Camp: How to become a Rebooter – Discovering new personal, organizational and partnership roles
§ AI: How to seize what’s next to competitively shift by TTT (Transformation Through Technology)
§ BBB: How to unnaturally grow faster by DDD (Disrupting Disruptive Disruptors) through BBB (Build/Buy/Borrow)
§ Reboot Rebels: Advanced Master Class to take Your Organization and Yourself to the Next-Level
§ Custom workshops and boot camps
Rebooter Audiences:
Dean has delivered talks to thousands in a variety of settings, including company employee and client/partner events, professional associations and industry conferences, governments and institutions, non-profits, academic settings and commencements.
"Dean is a dynamic speaker who delivered a remarkable commencement at our college. You expect keynoters to inspire and exhort students to their next goals, but Dean took this to a new level, providing a rare glimpse into the future and how to thrive in it. Our graduates, faculty and parents seemed to be on the edge of their seats as he unveiled his life journey, from graduating High School early to becoming a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. They most appreciated how he put himself in their shoes, with relevant, humorous and memorable stories about how to prepare for the turbulent job market being disrupted by technology. Dean was our top speaker". Jerry Weber, College of Lake County
"Dean is an absolutely amazing and engaging keynote speaker that our audience not only enjoys repeatedly–but they also receive strong value from his educational and entertaining content. His talks are highly impactful and his MC capabilities are world-class with just the right amount of humor that our audiences need, which is why I invite him back every year to speak and MC our flagship programs at The National Press Club and Stanford University" Robert Rodriquez, Security Innovation Network
"Dean inspires audiences with cutting-edge secrets from the hybrid world where the Entrepreneurial Movement meets the realities of global business. He delivers keynotes with a motivating, entertaining and humorously fun punch, leaving audiences enlightened, energized and armed with Reboot Rules and Dancing with Startups insights they can use to impact their business and personal life." Julie Anixter, Tom Peters Company
"Dean is a great speaker, he is a master at engaging as well as entertaining audiences, making business-relevant points, while carefully tailoring his content and style to the audiences and objectives of our programs." Rob Wolcott, Clareo Partners
"There are only a handful of people like Dean who can authoritatively navigate the complex entrepreneurial movement, while facilitating unlikely meet-ups and partnerships between some of the largest and smallest companies across the world. Innovative leaders from multi-national corporations rely on his keen ability to vet precise varieties of emerging growth companies, from Silicon Valley to New York and Europe to Asia, and bring them together through the development of unique partnerships, new ventures or investment relationships.
More importantly and impactful, is Dean is a great keynote speaker and summit facilitator. On a tour stop of Dean's signature "Dancing with Startups" series his team not only curates impactful sessions with entrepreneurial talent from the smartest stealth companies, incubators and accelerators, but he also commands an eclectic audience of the top civic, government, academic, financial, business and thought leaders from the local ecosystem. This unique platform has been extremely valuable in broadening our reach and effectiveness while helping us to accelerate the execution of our innovation programs." Sonny Garg, Exelon
"Dean, there is nobody like him to take your company to the next level"
Donald Trump, The Celebrity Apprentice
Dancing with Startups
Corporations are living in the age of "Uber yourself before you get Kodaked!" These trendy words are easy to say-but difficult to do-unless you learn how to Disrupt the Disruptive Disruptors. See how corporations are shifting toward open-innovation platforms that rely on partnering with global ecosystems. Learn how to plan, navigate and leverage the entrepreneurial-movement, with a program to create impactful innovation partnerships, that can accelerate growth, improve efficiencies, and...
'Uber Yourself before you get Kodaked'
How Corporations can learn to innovat like a startup.
Corporations are living in the age of "Uber yourself before you get Kodaked!" These trendy words are easy to say-but difficult to do-unless you learn how to Disrupt the Disruptive Disruptors. See how corporations are shifting toward open-innovation platforms that rely on partnering with global ecosystems. Learn how to plan, navigate and leverage the entrepreneurial-movement, with a program to create impactful innovation...
Disrupting the Disruptive Disruptors
How fight back and to take your organization's innovation and growth to the next level in a globally competitive Co-Creation world.
Reboot Your Organization
Rebooting your Organization is a proven method that brings with a new refreshing approach to help organizations shift from typical Big, Fat and Slow behaviors to a renewed focus on People, Platform and Passion. Audiences are taken on an entertaining, informative and transformational journey, about how the worlds top leaders are Rebooting their organizations for the 21st Century.
Boardroom Innovation
What the next-generation of corporate board members and C-Suite professionals need to do around growth, innovation and The Entrepreneurial Movement ... and how to to deal with disruption in a technology enabled, digitally connected, social media, cyber insecure age of governance.
Member Of
Certifications & Awards
