About Responsive

A Letter From Our Founder

In 2015, the authors of Responsive Org wrote that “the future is becoming increasingly difficult to predict.”

Today, with global instability, political partisanship, and a more rapid rate of change than ever seen before in human history, those words feel prescient.

The tension between organizations optimized for predictability and the unpredictable world we inhabit has reached a breaking point. Only organizations that adapt to this ever-changing world are going to survive.

I founded ​Responsive Conference​ because I had witness the organizational dysfunctions and counter-productive habits across two dozen different industries.

In selling to the Fortune 100s, I learned how much of business is relationship-driven. As the first employee at a non-profit education tech. company, I witnessed how slow our educational systems are to change. As an acrobat with the San Francisco Opera, I experienced the century-old practices of one of our most storied arts institutions. And in my own little brick-and-mortar restaurant, I learned about San Francisco city politics.

We still structure our organizations as we did in decades and centuries past; for a time where predictability mattered more than speed of execution.

I started Responsive Conference because I was interested in exploring these topics and learning from the best thinkers and practitioners around the world. The theme of this year's conference is “Design for change” because the world is changing so rapidly. And it is only those individuals and organizations who can keep pace with change which are going to thrive.

I hope you’ll join us at the Oakland Museum of California for Responsive Conference 2025.

Let’s build the future of work together!

Best,
Robin P. Zander