Herminia Ibarra – Distinguished authority on leadership

World-Renowned Leadership Expert, London Business School Professor & Authority on Leadership Development, Career Reinvention and Organisational Transformation

Speaker Overview

Professor Herminia Ibarra is one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership, professional development and how individuals and organisations successfully navigate change.

She is the Charles Handy Chair in Organisational Behaviour at London Business School and has previously served on the faculties of Harvard Business School and INSEAD. Thinkers50 consistently ranks Herminia among the world’s leading management thinkers and named her the world’s number one leadership thinker in 2013.

Herminia is the bestselling author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader and Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career. Her research challenges conventional thinking about how people become better leaders, arguing that meaningful change often begins with action and experimentation rather than introspection alone.

Her work is particularly relevant for organisations facing transformation, disruption and changing expectations of leadership.

Herminia’s keynotes combine rigorous academic research with practical ideas that help leaders expand their capabilities, build stronger networks, navigate transitions and become more adaptable in an increasingly uncertain business environment.

Popular Speaking Topics

Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader

Why successful leadership development begins with action, experimentation and stepping beyond the behaviours that made you successful in the past.

Leadership Through Transformation

How leaders can adapt their behaviour, networks and leadership identity when organisations are undergoing significant change.

Leading in an Age of Uncertainty

The leadership capabilities organisations need to navigate disruption, complexity and continuous transformation.

The Future of Leadership

How leadership is changing and why tomorrow’s organisations require leaders who can adapt, collaborate, experiment and learn continuously.

Reinventing Your Leadership Identity

How executives can successfully transition into bigger leadership roles by experimenting with new behaviours and expanding how they see themselves.

Building Strategic Networks

Why successful leaders need to move beyond familiar relationships and build broader networks that expose them to new ideas, perspectives and opportunities.

Career Reinvention and Working Identity

How professionals can successfully navigate major career transitions, experiment with possible futures and create the next chapter of their working lives.

Why Book Herminia Ibarra?

Herminia combines world-class academic research with an unusually practical approach to leadership development.

Rather than presenting leadership as a collection of abstract theories, she focuses on what leaders actually need to do differently when their responsibilities, organisations and environments change.

One of her most influential ideas is that people do not necessarily need to think themselves into a new way of acting. Instead, they can act themselves into a new way of thinking by experimenting with new roles, relationships and behaviours.

This makes her work particularly valuable for senior leaders who are stepping into bigger roles, organisations undergoing transformation and businesses that need their leadership populations to become more adaptable.

Her insights are research-led, intellectually rigorous and highly relevant to the challenges facing modern organisations.

Audiences Leave With:

• A clearer understanding of how leadership capability actually develops
• Practical strategies for becoming a more effective and adaptable leader
• New approaches to navigating organisational transformation
• Tools for successfully transitioning into bigger leadership roles
• A better understanding of leadership identity and professional reinvention
• Strategies for building broader and more valuable professional networks
• Greater confidence to experiment with new leadership behaviours
• Practical ideas for leading through uncertainty and disruption

Biography

Professor Herminia Ibarra is a globally recognised authority on leadership development, career transitions and organisational transformation.

She is the Charles Handy Chair in Organisational Behaviour and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. Before joining LBS, Herminia held academic positions at INSEAD and Harvard Business School.

Born in Cuba, Herminia received her MA and PhD from Yale University, where she was a National Science Fellow.

Her research has transformed conventional thinking about how people develop as leaders.

In Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, Herminia introduced the concept of “outsight”, arguing that leaders grow by changing what they do, developing different relationships and experimenting with new ways of working rather than relying solely on introspection.

Her influential book Working Identity explores professional reinvention and how people successfully navigate significant career transitions. Rather than attempting to identify the perfect next step through analysis alone, her research demonstrates the importance of experimentation, new relationships and trying possible professional identities in practice.

Her work also examines the leadership capabilities required in increasingly uncertain environments. She argues that today’s complex challenges require organisations to become more adaptive, with leadership and innovation distributed more widely across teams rather than relying exclusively on top-down solutions.

Herminia’s contribution to management thinking has received international recognition. Thinkers50 awarded her its Leadership Award in 2013, and she continues to feature in its ranking of the world’s leading management thinkers. She is also a Fellow of the British Academy and has received the Academy of Management’s Scholar-Practitioner Award.

Today, Herminia works with executives and organisations around the world, helping leaders understand how to develop, adapt and successfully navigate periods of professional and organisational transformation.

Speaking Style

Intelligent, thought-provoking and practical. Herminia combines world-class research with compelling business examples and clear frameworks that challenge established assumptions about how leadership development and organisational change really happen.

Ideal Audiences

• Senior Leadership Conferences
• Executive Leadership Programmes
• Leadership Development Events
• Organisational Transformation Conferences
• Talent and People Strategy Events
• Future of Leadership Summits
• Executive Offsites
• Partner and Senior Management Conferences
• Women in Leadership Events
• Career Development Programmes
• Future of Work Conferences
• Large Enterprise Leadership Teams

Key Takeaway

Herminia Ibarra shows that becoming a better leader is not simply about gaining more knowledge or spending more time analysing yourself.

Leadership develops through action.

By taking on unfamiliar challenges, building new relationships, experimenting with different behaviours and stepping outside established professional identities, leaders can develop the capabilities they need for their next stage of growth.

Her work gives organisations a powerful framework for developing more adaptable leaders who are better equipped to navigate transformation, uncertainty and change.

Book Herminia Ibarra For Your Event

Professor Herminia Ibarra delivers research-led keynote presentations that help leaders develop the capabilities required to navigate transformation, uncertainty and increasingly complex organisations.

Drawing on decades of research into leadership development, professional identity and organisational change, she challenges traditional assumptions about how leaders grow and provides practical strategies for turning leadership development into action.

Her talks are ideal for senior leadership conferences, executive development programmes, transformation events, talent conferences and corporate offsites where organisations want their leaders to become more adaptable, collaborative and effective.

Contact us today to check availability and discover how Herminia Ibarra can help your leaders develop the capabilities they need to lead through change and transformation.