Why 90% of Projects Fail & How Leaders Can Build Better Projects | Antonio Nieto x Shekhar Natarajan
August 18, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readIn 2010, Antonio Nieto was fired for proposing that his consulting firm build a practice around project management. The partners told him project work was “dirty”—tactical, not strategic, something you hire a junior person for, not a high-fee advisory service. That rejection became the engine of his career. Today, Nieto is the only Spanish thinker on the Thinkers50 ranking, a former chairman of the Project Management Institute, and the author of The Project Revolution. His core argument: the future of value creation is not operations but projects, and most projects fail not because of bad Gantt charts but because leaders misunderstand what a project actually requires.
The three layers that determine project success
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:09) **Antonio’s Unconventional Global Upbringing** - Antonio describes his childhood moving between Mexico, Germany, Italy, and the US.
- 2 (05:36) **From Struggling Student to Passionate Project Manager** - Antonio shares how he was a terrible student who hated memorizing, but found his calling in project work at PwC.
- 3 (09:38) **The Pitch That Got Him Fired** - Antonio recounts how his proposal to become a partner by building a project advisory practice was rejected, and he was fired.
- 4 (12:56) **Why Pharma Projects Succeed Where Others Fail** - Antonio contrasts project failure in banking with success in pharma, using GSK as an example.
- 5 (21:00) **The COVID Vaccine: A 12-Year Project in 12 Months** - Antonio explains how the vaccine development broke all rules by compressing a decade-long process into one year.
- 6 (26:24) **The Three Layers of Project Success** - Antonio introduces his core framework: the project itself, the leadership team, and the organization.
- 7 (30:53) **The Eight Pillars of Project Management** - Antonio breaks down the eight areas that must work together for project success.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
In this episode of Tomorrow Today, Shekhar Natarajan speaks with Antonio Nieto, a leading voice in project management and business transformation.
They discuss:
- Why projects fail and what makes them succeed
- The role of leadership, culture and governance
- Lessons from GSK and ABN AMRO
- What COVID-19 vaccine development teaches us about project execution
- The importance of people, judgment and relationships
- How AI will transform project management
- Why future business value may increasingly come from the projects companies choose to invest in
A conversation about projects, leadership, transformation and building the future.
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