[PRESSWIRE] London, UK – 24 September, 2026 — In her debut book Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking, Vessels, who led Adobe’s shift from packaged software to digital services (when its market value grew from $16 billion to $250 billion), warns that following industrial age practices will leave companies struggling.
Designed for CEOs, executives, managers, and anyone struggling to keep up, Emergence provides the compass leaders need to navigate when markets shift faster than traditional planning allows, with tested lessons from engagements with Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, and Novartis.
The book introduces the P.E.A.C.E framework – Purpose, Exploration, Action, Collaboration, Empowerment – a structured approach for thriving when predetermined paths disappear. It also shows how to integrate AI with human talent, empower multi-generational teams, and build organisations that are ready for continuous change.
Drawing on decades of leadership experience at the heart of Silicon Valley innovation and leading transformation for some of the world’s toughest organisations, Vessels provides a proven approach all can use to navigate uncertainty.
Readers will also discover:
- Strategies for navigating five converging forces – Speed, Confidence, Meaning, Pressure, and Human/AI disruption – reshaping the leadership landscape
- Practical AI integration approaches used within global enterprises including AutoDesk, IKEA, Schneider Electric and Van Ameyde
- A practical, 90-day step-by-step appendix for AI adoption using the P.E.A.C.E. framework
- How to shift from fear-based decision-making to intuition-driven, experiential leadership that produces measurable organisational results
- Tiger team structures and empowerment approaches that release collective capability at scale across large organisations
- Lessons from IKEA’s six-year Korean market entry and Novartis’s approach to restructuring every six months
CEO of Next Step and author Jennifer Vessels says, “Emergence highlights why it’s never been more important to break free from the pressure of doing more and working harder, let go of expectations and fear of using AI as a tool or embracing change to thrive in the future. The first critical step in my P.E.A.C.E framework is identifying a business’s purpose. By gaining alignment on the North Star, ie purpose, this approach delivers results including a 500 percent increase in value, 300 percent in revenue growth and a ten times return on investment.”
Emergence has been written as a guide for leaders as they embrace today’s unprecedented speed of change including technology, geopolitics, climate and societal shifts. It is designed to help CEOs navigate leadership transformation when industrial age strategies such as clamping down on working from home no longer apply.
The book’s throughline is the true story of Marie, a 19-year-old woman who, in May 1945, convinced a group of German soldiers to clear a barricade in Ampfing, Germany, so that advancing Allied tanks could cross a bridge without bloodshed. She had no authority, no plan and no script – only clarity about what mattered most. Vessels returns to Marie’s story across every chapter as evidence that the P.E.A.C.E. principles are not a corporate invention, but a human capacity available to anyone, regardless of title or budget.
Vessels does not just talk about the future of business – she builds it. For over two decades, she has driven transformation for the world’s most influential organisations. As CEO of Next Step, she operates at the intersection of Silicon Valley innovation and global business execution, translating cutting-edge technology and emerging trends into actionable approaches that deliver measurable results.
Testimonials about Emergence:
“Your greatest competitive advantage today is quietly becoming your most dangerous blind spot tomorrow. In this book, Jennifer Vessels distils two decades of experience to provide an approach for leaders ready to trade the comfort of expertise for the courage of navigation.”
Sunil Gupta, Professor Digital Strategy/Innovation, Harvard
“Intensely personal and universal, challenging and practical, future looking and grounded, informative and demanding, Emergence is an important book. Jennifer Vessels has captured the new reality but also powerfully lays out how we can navigate productive ways into the future.”
Stuart Crainer, Co-Founder Thinkers50
Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking will be published by Wiley on Thursday 22 October 2026.
For more information or interviews with Jennifer Vessels contact Nicola Rowley on +44 7932 656685 or email: nicola@njrpr.com
