Speakers Bios & Abstracts

Rachel Botsman is the global authority on the power of collaboration and sharing to change the way we live, work, bank and consume. She is regarded as one of the most insightful and creative thinkers on this socioeconomic revolution and has been compared with Malcolm Gladwell for identifying an idea and catapulting it into popular consciousness.

Rachel’s theory of “collaborative consumption” was defined in her critically acclaimed book about the sharing economy, What's Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way We Live (Harper Collins, 2010). The concept was hailed by TIME Magazine as one of the “10 Ideas that Will Change the World.” Rachel’s TED talks on the topic have been viewed more than two million times and in 2015, she designed the world’s first M.B.A. course on the collaborative economy, which she taught at Oxford University’s Saïd School of Business.

In her work with universities, entrepreneurs, corporations, and governments Rachel examines the growth and challenges of start-ups such as Airbnb, TaskRabbit and Uber, with a focus on technology’s impact on trust and relationships. Combining deep observational and historical knowledge with strategic intuition and foresight, Rachel discerns threads and patterns that provide context for how and why the world is changing and the broader implications of this new economy.
 
A contributing editor at Wired Magazine, Rachel is a regular writer and commentator in leading international publications including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The New York Times, and Financial Times. Her monthly column, “Industry Hackers”, in The Australian Financial Review explores the mindset of entrepreneurs who see the world differently.

Rachel was named by Fast Company as one of the ‘Most Creative People in Business,’ and a ‘Young Global Leader’ by the World Economic Forum. She is a highly compelling and engaging speaker and was endorsed by Monocle as one of the world’s top 20 speakers to keynote your conference.

Rachel earned her BFA (Honours) at the University of Oxford and undertook postgraduate studies at Harvard University. Her work takes her to every continent, except (so far) Antarctica.