Saying No to Microsoft

Mr. Kivi Bernhard, one of the world’s 10 top Platform Speakers, was a recent guest lecturer at a Chabad of Melbourne CBD luncheon.

Bernhard spoke about his experiences as an orthodox Jew who travels as a keynote speaker working with meeting planners and speaker bureaus across the world. Kivi has spoken for many Fortune 500 corporations, among them AMEX, Bank of America, Coke and ING Insurance.

Bernhard is also the author of the internationally acclaimed business book: Leopardology™ – The Hunt For Profit In Tough Global Economy (MJP of New York 2009). He has also appeared on national media, including CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS.

Bernhard told an inspiring story about being asked to speak at an event that was being hosted and sponsored in part by Microsoft. The event was a small but very high end meeting that ranking global executives were scheduled to attend.

When Bernhard was approached through a speaker bureau that he works with regarding the event, the initial date that was planned for was to be a Shabbos.

After turning down the engagement twice, he received a call from the office of a very senior Microsoft executive who simply offered to resolve the issue by offering Bernhard almost double his speaking fee. It was explained that the meeting had been set some year and half in advance and that the theme was chosen around Leopardology™ etc.

Again, Bernhard said he could not speak due to Shabbos. The meeting was in fact rescheduled to accommodate the holy Shabbos and Kivi Bernhard opened their meeting event with a keynote on the Sunday morning.

Several months later this senior global VP communicated to Kivi that subsequently he had an occasion to join Bill Gates on his private jet where this particular event came up. The Microsoft executive mentioned the unusual experience and the phenomena of having to work with the speaker bureau to reschedule the start date of the meeting to accommodate “a Jew’s observance of the Sabbath,”

He said to me this made quite an impact on Mr Gates who remarked “there are some things that just cannot be bought with money… I guess the Sabbath is one of them.”

Beyond his speaking ability, it is the unique synthesis of his background as a Rabbinic Student and Yeshiva Graduate, international business student, judo medalist, trauma life support paramedic, advanced teacher of Chassidic thought and philosophy, and passionate wild life enthusiast that make Bernhard such an experience to listen to. It is this unique merger of Jew and human being that has allowed Kivi to explore the ultimate “inside” story of this thing the secular world calls, “The Jew.”

Rabbi Chaim Herzog, the Shliach of Chabad of Melbourne CBD thanked Mr. Bernhard, saying that his lecture was one of the highest, if not the highest, caliber of lecture the center has offered to date.