London Business School (LBS) professors Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour; Herminia Ibarra, Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour; and Michael C Jacobides, Sir Donald Gordon Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship have been named amongst the world’s greatest thinkers in the 2023 ranking by Thinkers50. Heidi K Gardner, who was awarded a PhD by LBS, has also been recognised in this year’s list. 

Published every two years, the Thinkers50 Ranking promotes the most influential management thinkers in the world by answering one simple question: who is the world’s most influential living management thinker?

Professor Gratton, an expert on management practice and organisational change, has appeared in the Thinkers50 list since 2011 when she was ranked twelfth top thinker in the world. She has ranked consistently in the list since then, also appearing in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2021. An award-winning writer, Professor Gratton is the author of numerous books highlighted in her Thinkers50 profile, including Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organisation and Make Hybrid work for Everyone, The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World and The 100-Year Life, the latter two co-authored with LBS’ Professor Andrew Scott.

Professor Gratton also writes about the issues facing businesses in regular columns for The Times and MIT Sloan Management Review, amongst other renowned media outlets and publications. Her ‘Managers Can’t Do It All’ article with Diane Gherson for Harvard Business Review (HBR) was awarded the 2023 Warren Bennis Prize. Topics she has written about recently include era challenges and life-stage challenges, ageism, mastery and the joy of friendship and human creativity versus AI for The Times and Generative AI, organisational learning models, and flexible working for MIT Sloan Management Review.

Professor Ibarra, an authority on leadership and career development, has also featured in the list since 2011, having been ranked also in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. She was ranked #8 in 2015, the year her ground-breaking book about leadership Think Like A Leader, Act Like A Leader was first published. Republished in October 2023 along with her seminal book Working Identity, both books offer unconventional strategies for reinventing careers, with Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove of Thinkers50 considering that “Ibarra is essential reading for anyone stepping up to a leadership role.”

An expert on how to improve gender diversity at executive level, Professor Ibarra recently spoke at the 2023 Financial Times’ Women in Business Europe Summit and is a sought-after speaker on career development and career transitions. Most recently she spoke to the LBS London Alumni Club about how to achieve career change, as covered by Forbes. A regular writer for leading publications, such as HBR, Professor Ibarra’s most recent articles have focused on career transition, the journey to becoming a leader and sponsorship. Regularly appearing in the Case Centre’s list of best-selling authors, Professor Ibarra was named among the Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors for 2022/23 and wrote one of the Top 50 Case Studies of the last 50 years.

Professor Jacobides, a specialist on corporate turnarounds and organisational transformation, has featured in the Thinkers50 list since 2019, appearing again in 2021 and 2023. Considered by Thinkers50 to be a champion of business ecosystems and digital platforms, collaboration and partnership, Professor Jacobides has received numerous awards for his work including: the Sloan Foundation Award and California Management Review’s 2023 Best Article Award for his paper, How to Compete When Industries Digitize and Collide: An Ecosystem Development Framework. His work on ‘Regulating Platforms & Ecosystems’ was also highly commended in the 2022 Financial Times’ Responsible Business Education Awards.

Professor Jacobides has been invited to join the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution at the World Economic Forum’s newly launched AI Governance Alliance (AIGA), which aims to bring stakeholders together with the objective of positively influencing existing AI governance efforts. He is also the director and convenor a new five-day Open Executive Education course at London Business School on “Next Generation Digital Strategies”. It will cover platforms and ecosystems; AI; the metaverse; and will include coaching for those aiming to build their digital strategy.