The Sweeney Agency

About Dr. Ken Dychtwald – Futurist and Speaker on Marketing and the Changing Workforce:

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Ken Dychtwald has emerged as North America´s foremost visionary and original thinker regarding the lifestyle, marketing, healthcare and workforce implications of the age wave. He is a psychologist, gerontologist, documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and best-selling author of sixteen books on aging-related issues, including Bodymind, Age Wave: The Challenges and Opportunities of an Aging Society, Age Power, The Power Years: A User’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life, Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent, and a children’s book, Gideon’s Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings. His new book is entitled With Purpose: Going From Success to Significance in Work and Life has also been released in paperback as A New Purpose: Redefining Money, Family, Work, Retirement and Success. In 2007, he had his debut as a documentary filmmaker and host with the highly rated/acclaimed PBS special The Boomer Century. His most recent PBS special With Purpose aired nationwide in 2009 to coincide with the book release.

Ken Dychtwald has served as a fellow of the World Economic Forum and he is the recipient of the distinguished American Society on Aging Award for outstanding national leadership in the field of aging. American Demographics Magazine honored him as the single most influential marketer to baby boomers over the past quarter century. His article in The Harvard Business Review, It’s Time to Retire Retirement, was awarded the prestigious McKinsey Award, tying for first place with the legendary Peter Drucker.

In 1986, Ken became the founding President and CEO of Age Wave, a firm created to guide Fortune 500 companies and government groups in product/service development for boomers and mature adults. His client list has included more than half of the Fortune 500. His explorations and innovative solutions have fertilized and catalyzed a broad spectrum of industry sectors—from vitamins and cookies to automotive design and retail merchandising to mutual funds and health insurance.

During his career, Dr. Dychtwald has addressed more than two million people worldwide in his speeches to corporate, association, social service, and government groups. His strikingly accurate predictions and innovative ideas are regularly featured in leading print and electronic media worldwide, including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Financial Times, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Inc., U.S. News and World Report, The Economist, HK Daily News, South China Morning Post, The Standard, The Straits Times, 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, Today Show, PBS, NPR and BBC.

Through his highly acclaimed presentations, his breakthrough research and consulting initiatives, and his leadership within both the social science and business communities, Ken Dychtwald has dedicated his life to battling ageist stereotypes while promoting a new, vital and meaningful role for life’s second half.

What Dr. Ken Dychtwald Talks About:

The Aging of America: Triumph or Tragedy? We are about to confront a demographic shift of enormous magnitude: increasing longevity, declining fertility, and the aging of the baby boom are triggering an enormous age wave. This wave has the potential to create vibrant new stages of life with positive roles for the multiplying ranks of elders—and an equally compelling potential for social, financial and political catastrophe. Can our country afford to have tens of millions of us living to 80? Or 100? Will existing entitlement programs survive long enough for us to reap even part of what we have been paying in? Can our current healthcare system handle the onslaught of chronic degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s? Can we envision – and bring to life a new purpose to maturity? In this powerful presentation, Maddy Dychtwald will share her reflections, frustrations, hopes and solutions for how we might chart and navigate the best course to our collective futures.

Living with Purpose: Rethinking Success
Success is defined differently at different moments in life. As a child, it has a lot to do with pleasing our parents. In our teens, it’s often about academic achievement and popularity. As a working adult, success is often about balancing the challenge of creating a healthy family while building a satisfying career. But what’s next? Healthy living and modern medicine have given our lives longevity, but how do we make the most of all that time? Is it too late to go back to school, start a new and gratifying career (or turbo-charge your current one), fall in love again, reinvent yourself? Since happiness is about more than what's in the bank, what are the essential components of an all-weather, successful life portfolio - with a significant investment in head, heart, spirit and civic engagement? This hopeful and motivating new presentation answers the essential questions: what is success now and what is the new purpose of life’s second half?

Four Generations Rethink Work, Retirement and Success
We are living in the midst of unprecedented demographic, economic and social changes that impact nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Increasing longevity and insufficient savings mean that older workers will be working longer and shrinking their retirement. Mid-career workers are trying to reboot their enthusiasm for a longer and more demanding worklife as they simultaneously try to fund their future retirement. Young workers are struggling to enter the workforce during tough economic times. What makes each of the four working generations tick – and perform at their best? What are they looking to get from - and give to – their jobs? How will they measure success in this new era? This presentation will explore these issues while showing how to retain and attract valuable talent and enhance productivity through programs such as: creative use of flexible work arrangements, innovative learning and mentoring opportunities, sabbaticals, retraining, re-careering, flex-retirement and creative compensation and benefits programs.

Retirement Wake-Up Call: The Future of Financial Services
How has today’s financial crisis altered the relationship between client and financial advisor? Based on research findings from numerous highly acclaimed Age Wave studies on retirement and financial services, this presentation sheds light on which aspects of the financial services industry are dying and which are coming alive. It outlines the new retirement-related needs, worries, and aspirations – and how financial services firms and advisors can re-establish trust with the wary public. Meet the Ageless Explorers, the Comfortably Contents, the Live for Todays and the Sick and Tireds. Learn how each group feels about their lives, their prospects for fulfilling their hopes and dreams for retirement and what role financial planning, employer support and/or government policies have played in getting them to where they are today. This presentation also covers how the emerging adult lifestage demands of careers, parenthood, eldercare, grandparenthood, singlehood, disability and rehirement will affect savings and retirement funding.

How the Age Wave Will Transform the Marketplace - and Our Lives
This visionary presentation offers deep insights into the global population shifts that are occurring and what they mean for business and marketers. How might increasing longevity and declining fertility impact societies, economies, families and individual lives? Do people want to live traditional linear or more flexible cyclic lives and how does that alter brand loyalty? How will the age wave impact the consumer marketplace and which sectors and products will shrink and which will grow: from vitamins and nutraceuticals, cookies to lifetime income insurance and anti-aging healthcare, and from adventure travel to edutainment. Which industries – and countries - are hopeful about their age wave prospects and which are fearful? This presentation outlines how companies should orient their branding and marketing to best resonate with the new generation of middlescent adults. Dr. Ken Dychtwald will also provide a list of key marketing lessons from 35 years on the front lines - that can be applied by marketers across industries. (Note: This presentation can be shaped to focus either on the US, North American or Global Age Wave.)

Other Topics:

Retirement at the Tipping Point: New Funding, New Timing New Purpose

The Longevity Revolution: The Future of Health and Healthcare

Understanding the Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit of the New Middlescent Consumer

Middlescence: Envisioning the Coming Wave in Travel Consumption