Companies Don’t Transform, People Do: Rishad Tobaccowala on Work, Agencies, and Reinvention

<p>Few people have had a better vantage point on the transformation of advertising, technology, and work than <strong>Rishad Tobaccowala</strong>.</p><p>Over a 37-year career at Publicis Groupe, Rishad helped pioneer its digital businesses, chaired Digitas and Razorfish, and ultimately served as Global Chief Strategist and Growth Officer. Today, he is an author, teacher, adviser, senior adviser to Publicis Groupe, co-founder of the <strong>Athena Project on Modern Leadership</strong>, and one of the industry’s most original thinkers on how people and organizations navigate change. </p><p>In this wide-ranging, smart, funny, and deeply thought-provoking conversation, Rishad joins <strong>Brett House and Rio Longacre</strong> to challenge one of the biggest assumptions surrounding technological transformation: companies don’t transform simply because they buy new technology, reorganize, or deploy AI. <strong>Companies transform when their people do.</strong></p><p>Rishad argues that AI represents something fundamentally different from previous technology waves—not simply another tool, but what he calls an emerging form of <strong>“alien intelligence.”</strong> The question, then, isn’t whether organizations have an AI strategy. It’s whether they are willing to rethink how work gets done, how people are rewarded, where power sits, and what human beings uniquely contribute. </p><p>The conversation explores why transformation is ultimately about <strong>power, politics, people, and partnering</strong>; why technology moves faster than organizations; and why simply making the old model more efficient is like putting a faster engine into a car when what you really need is to design an airplane. </p><p>Rishad also explains his idea of <strong>“de-bossification”</strong>—the decline of management built around control and the rise of leadership built around influence. He compares the organization of the future to jazz rather than classical music: more improvisational, collaborative, fluid, and less dependent on rigid hierarchy. </p><p>Along the way, they dig into:</p><ul><li>Why AI may change nearly every white-collar job without necessarily eliminating work</li><li>The rise of <strong>portfolio careers</strong>, fractional talent, freelance work, and agentic employees</li><li>The six skills Rishad believes matter most: <strong>creativity, curiosity, cognition, collaboration, convincing, and communication</strong></li><li>Why knowledge may become abundant while judgm