Herminia Ibarra. Professor, author and speaker.

A world authority on leadership, career transition and women’s advancement

Herminia Ibarra is the Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. Prior to LBS, she served on the INSEAD and Harvard Business School faculties for over 25 years. She teaches executives and masters students on leadership, organisational transformation and career development.

Herminia’s books and articles are founded on rigorous research and pose some of the most important business questions of our time: How do I reinvent my career? How do I transition to a more senior leadership role? How do we reduce the barriers to women reaching top management roles? What will leadership look like in the age of AI?

Books

Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader book by Herminia Ibarra

In this unconventional book, Herminia provides the first practical guide on how to change when you also need to lead. Defying standard leadership development guidance, which encourages deep self-reflection into strengths and weaknesses, this book shows that the most effective way to change is through action, not analysis, and by learning from experience, not introspection.

Working Identity book by Herminia Ibarra

Nearly all of us have entertained the notion of reinventing ourselves. Feeling unfulfilled, burned out, or just plain unhappy with what we’re doing, we long to make that leap into the unknown. In this powerful book, Herminia presents a new model for career reinvention that flies in the face of everything we’ve learned from ‘career experts’.

Latest articles

Herminia writes for the leading academic journals, business publications, and international news media, on leadership and organisational transformation.

Why career transition is so hard. And how to manage it better.

15 October 2023

The accelerated pace of technological change and, most recently, the advent of AI are reshaping jobs and organizations in ways that call for constant career reinvention. So we all need to learn how to get better at making the most of the frequent transitions that will constitute a long working life.

The challenges of networking as an executive

5 September 2023

Networking is critical for senior executives who are making job and career transitions, but it’s hard to find advice on how best to manage the process. In this article, the authors — who have decades of experience working with executives during periods of transition — identify six networking hurdles that executives often encounter, and they provide guidance on how to get over them.

Career sponsorship is a two-way street

13 February 2023

Sponsorship is a vital mechanism for advancing the careers of junior employees. But it’s not just a one-way relationship in which everything flows from the sponsor to the sponsee. What sponsees bring to the relationship, in fact, is just as important — if not more important — than what sponsors do. This article describes six of the most important attributes of successful sponsees.

Professor

Herminia is the Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School and has served on the INSEAD and Harvard Business School faculties. In 2019 she was awarded the LBS Excellence in Teaching prize and Thinkers 50 ranks her among the world’s top management thinkers.

Author

Herminia’s books, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader and Working Identity are bestsellers in their field. Both will be updated by Harvard Business Press for their second editions in 2023. Her articles are published in leading academic journals, business publications, and international news media. She is a bestselling case author, as ranked by the Case Center.

Speaker

Herminia speaks internationally on leadership and transformation for organisations, and at conferences that include TEDx, WIRED Smarter and the World Business Forum.

The authenticity paradox

TEDx, London Business School

What will leadership look like in the age of AI?

WIRED Smarter