Dr. Jonas Ridderstrale is one of the world's most prominent and respected business thinkers and speakers. Since bursting onto the international scene with the bestseller Funky Business in 2000, Jonas has remained at the forefront of the new generation of management gurus. The 2009 Thinkers 50, the biennial ranking of management thinkers, ranked him at number 23 globally and put him on the top-five list in Europe.

His forceful blend of academic rigor, imagination, humour and highly dynamic presentation style has made him an extremely sought after and appreciated speaker with engagements from Moscow to Mumbai and San Francisco to Shanghai. Jonas' diverse client list includes organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies and major government bodies to sports teams and trade unions. Jonas is a presenter with a difference who makes a difference. He has spent the last ten years giving people the competence, confidence and courage to think, feel and do things differently. In keynotes and workshops Jonas conveys his message with passion and energy, adding not only improved skill but also inspiring the will and thrill necessary for change.

Jonas holds an MBA and a PhD in international business and was recognized as Sweden's outstanding young academic of the year. In 2007, he was awarded the prestigious Italian Nobels Colloquia award for "Leadership in Business and Economic Thinking". Jonas is currently a visiting professor at two internationally acclaimed business schools: Ashridge in the UK and IE in Spain. His research has been published in leading academic journals.

Jonas also practices what he so persuasively preaches. He is co-owner and Chairman of the Swedish Management Group - Mgruppen - one of Scandinavia's leading and most successful providers of management training and development. In addition, he acts as a trusted advisor and consultant to a number of multinational corporations.

In 2008, Wiley published his latest bestseller Re-energizing the Corporation: How leaders make change happen (co-written with Mark Wilcox). The new book tells you how to combine the why and how of leading change. His original claim to fame Funky Business: Talent makes capital dance quickly became an international success, selling in the excess of 300,000 copies. The book was recently ranked at number 16 in a Bloomsbury survey of the best business books of all time. The sequels, Karaoke Capitalism: Management for mankind and Funky Business Forever: How to enjoy capitalism, also became globally celebrated manifestos for how to make it in the new world of commerce. (All three books were co-authored with Kjell A. Nordström.) His books have been translated into more than 30 languages and published in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Jonas has attracted huge media coverage throughout the world. He has appeared on CNN's "Global Office" in an extended interview exploring the ideas behind his books. Elsewhere, he has been featured in Fortune, Fast Company, Time Magazine, Financial Times, The Times, Stern, Paris Match, and many other publications worldwide.

When he is not on the road, Jonas is based in Stockholm, Sweden, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Turning up after the downturn!
Most successful companies claim they compete on competence. Their talented people are the difference between inglorious failure and glorious success. But, the stark truth is we're all becoming increasingly ignorant. Like it or not, there's a widening gap between what we know and what you know. Look around. Academia is ever more specialized. Education is more global than ever. Wherever you look, what man knows is expanding at an incredible rate, but what a single individual knows is declining as a share of total knowledge.

On top of that, things just got even more complicated. In the global village, things are interdependent to an extent never previously witnessed. Anything seems to depend on everything. Think spiders-web. Economical, technological, physical and political linkages know no boundaries. Think swine-flu and the credit crisis. Think supply-chain management Wal-Mart style.

Unfortunately, most people respond to the extreme challenges caused by competence shortage and excess complexity by thinking me instead of we. Rather than considering the future, a majority settle for focusing on what's happening now. Too many of our organizations are therefore permeated by a destructive "menow-logic" of reduction - often reinforced by short-term oriented individual bonus schemes. This reaction isn't sustainable.

To stand a chance of truly turning up after the downturn, we must radically rethink the traditional recipes for business success. The best leaders apply a positive logic of PLUS - moving beyond the person, the present and the existing paradigm of management. Using examples from some of the most successful contemporary corporations, Dr. Ridderstråle presents four key ideas to help us make it in this new world of commerce:

• The enterprise+: In an era in which most centralized systems are doomed, the crucial issue is how to build corporations that profit from the wisdom of crowds. How can your corporation effectively mimic the principles of self-organizing systems - compete on we rather than me?
• The entrepreneurial+: When the future is too complicated to be predicted it must be created. What will it take to lead a company that operates on real-time feed-back; a corporation that is as good at innovation as the organization of the past was at exploitation? Could you lead an organization focused on tomorrow and not only today?
• The evolutionary+: As the shape of the global socio-economic landscape changes, people demand new things. Successful strategies must evolve to reflect that. Dr. Ridderstråle shows how you can identify tomorrow's business opportunities in a world where most customers feel stressed, bored, lonely and anonymous.
• The emotional+: The final idea focuses on the critical importance of engaging talent. Access to advanced know-how is now mandatory. Yet, not all the intellectual capital in the world will provide you with a sustainable competitive advantage. The next challenge is to utilize the full potential of the emotional capital of the firm. Dr. Ridderstråle outlines how to create such a re-energized corporation by boosting both the will and thrill of its people - complementing competence with confidence and courage to ensure execution.

FUNKY BUSINESS: Talent makes capital dance - Jonas Ridderstrale launches a manifesto for the new world of business. Forget what has come before; this is the future for organizations and leaders. We are all condemned to freedom. We cannot delegate the understanding of what drives tomorrow's society to politicians and executives. The funky future is here and now it's all up to you. The new world is different. Forget the old world order. Forget what you knew yesterday. The revolutionary reality is that 1.3 kilograms of brain holds the key to all our futures. Competitive advantage comes from being different. Increasingly, difference comes form the way people think rather than what organizations make. Today, the only thing that makes capital dance is talent. In such times we cannot have business as usual--we need funky business. Technology, institutions and values are being subverted and overturned. They are the triad, the inter--linked drivers of change, transforming each other and creating a global village of turbulance, tribes and fusion. We are deregulating life for ourselves and our children. Whether you like it or not, we are all condemned to freedom-- the freedom to choose.

KARAOKE CAPITALISM: Jonas Ridderstrale launches a new manifesto for how to make it in the world of Karaoke Capitalism. The karaoke economy is dominated by individuals with endless choice. The trouble for business is that the karaoke club is also home to institutionalized. Copy-cats abound. Only imagination and innovation place societies, organizations and individuals center-stage. Karaoke Capitalism is a call to arms. With his unorthodox combination of academic rigor, forceful logic and funky free-thinking he re-writes the rules for revolutionaries. This is a true work-out for the wits. He teaches us how to successfully compete on competencies, create capitalism with character, and how to have a great life while also making a living.

Read How to master change in times of crisis by Jonas Ridderstrale.