Non-binding request for Margaret Heffernan
Margaret Heffernan
Bestselling author and management thinker Margaret Heffernan challenges leaders to rethink uncertainty, competition and organizational culture.
Why you should book Margaret Heffernan for your next event
- Gain fresh perspectives on uncertainty, leadership and decision-making from an acclaimed author and experienced former CEO.
- Discover why collaboration, constructive challenge and small organizational changes can have a profound impact on performance.
- Bring complex leadership questions to life with insights shaped by business, broadcasting, research and decades of executive experience.
Non-binding request for Margaret Heffernan
Author, management thinker & expert on leadership, collaboration, innovation & navigating uncertainty
Margaret Heffernan is an acclaimed author, management thinker, former CEO and broadcaster whose work explores how people and organizations think, collaborate and navigate uncertainty. Across seven books, including Wilful Blindness, Uncharted and Embracing Uncertainty, she examines leadership, creativity, innovation and organizational culture. Her TED talks have been viewed more than 17 million times. Drawing on a career spanning broadcasting, technology, business and academia, Margaret challenges audiences to question assumptions, strengthen collective intelligence and prepare for an unpredictable future.
Book Margaret Heffernan for your event
Margaret Heffernan is an author, management thinker, former CEO and broadcaster whose work explores how organizations think, collaborate and respond to uncertainty. Drawing on decades of leadership experience and research, she examines why talented people miss problems in plain sight, what makes teams creative and how leaders can prepare for a future they cannot predict.
Born in Texas, raised in Holland and educated at Cambridge University, Margaret began her career at the BBC, working across radio and television as a writer, producer, director and commissioner. Her work included documentaries and programmes for Timewatch, Arena and Newsnight, as well as a thirteen-part series on the French Revolution for the BBC and A&E.
She has also written and presented numerous Analysis programmes for BBC Radio 4 and written five plays for the BBC. Her programme on female entrepreneurship, Changing the Rules, received the Prowess Media Award in 2008.
From broadcasting to business
After leaving the BBC, Margaret ran IPPA, the trade association representing independent film and television producers, which the Financial Times described as “the most formidable lobbying organization in England.”
Returning to the United States in 1994, she moved into technology and digital media, developing interactive products with Peter Lynch, Tom Peters, Standard & Poor’s and The Learning Company before joining CMGI.
At CMGI, Margaret ran, bought and sold Internet businesses and served as CEO of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCAST Corporation. Her work in Internet and media earned recognition from Silicon Alley Reporter, Streaming Media magazine and The Hollywood Reporter, while her “Tear Down the Wall” campaign against AOL won the 2001 Silver SABRE Award.
What Margaret brings to your event
Margaret brings together the perspective of a CEO, researcher and storyteller to address some of the most pressing challenges facing leaders and organizations today. Rather than offering simple formulas or predictions, she helps audiences think differently about complexity and make better decisions when the answers are not obvious.
Her keynotes explore topics including:
- Leading through uncertainty: Preparing for what comes next without relying on predictions that may prove wrong.
- Recognizing blind spots: Understanding why smart people and successful organizations can overlook important problems.
- Building stronger collaboration: Creating cultures where people share knowledge, challenge assumptions and make better use of collective intelligence.
- Unlocking innovation: Identifying the conditions that allow creativity and new ideas to flourish.
- Responsible leadership: Developing organizations that can learn, adapt and make sound decisions in complex environments.
Margaret combines challenging ideas with practical relevance, giving audiences new ways to think about leadership, teamwork and the choices they make every day.
Books that challenge conventional thinking
Margaret has published seven books spanning leadership, careers, collaboration, creativity and the future of work.
Her acclaimed Wilful Blindness (2011) investigates why individuals and organizations fail to see problems that are right in front of them. It was a finalist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Best Business Book of the Year Award and was later named by the Financial Times as one of the most important business books of the decade.
In A Bigger Prize (2014) and Beyond Measure (2015), Margaret examines competition, collaboration and the everyday practices that help organizations become more creative and innovative.
Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together (2020) turns to the challenge of planning in an unpredictable world, exploring how people and organizations can prepare productively for a future they cannot know in advance. The book received several business book nominations, was selected as “Best of the Best” by Medium and featured among Bloomberg’s best books of 2021.
Her latest book, Embracing Uncertainty (2025), draws lessons from writers, musicians and artists to explore how people can work, adapt and thrive when outcomes cannot be predicted.
Her earlier books, The Naked Truth (2004) and Women on Top (2007), examine women’s careers and entrepreneurship.
Leadership with global reach
Margaret’s TED talks have been viewed more than 17 million times, bringing her ideas about leadership, conflict, collaboration and organizational thinking to audiences around the world.
She has spoken for organizations including Disney, Accenture, Intel, Google, GSK, Novartis, Microsoft, Roche, Standard Chartered Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase and Procter & Gamble, as well as at Harvard Business School, London Business School and the Rotman School.
Margaret is a Professor at the School of Management at the University of Bath and Faculty Co-Lead for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme. Through Merryck & Co., she mentors global business leaders. She also chairs the board of DACS and has advised major reviews and inquiries into organizational culture and standards.
A frequent Financial Times contributor, Margaret is a member of the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in recognition of her lasting impact on management thinking.
Book Margaret Heffernan for a thought-provoking keynote that equips leaders and teams to navigate complexity, challenge assumptions and make better decisions in an unpredictable world.
Customer Reviews
5 of 5
Brilliant keynote from Margaret that hit our conference messages perfectly.
Emily CollyerTravis Perkins plc
Rated 5.00/5 based on 1 customer reviews
Keynotes
Keynote by Margaret Heffernan:
UNCHARTED: How to navigate the future
The time horizon for accurate prediction is now 150 – 400 days out. Which means that the 3-legged tool of management (forecast-pal-execute) is broken. But that need not leave us helpless. Individuals and organizations can find in uncertainty the creativity, ambition and robustness they need to stay meaningful and important in the world but only if they’re prepared to rethink core concepts like efficiency, planning and strategy. Ineradicable uncertainty may be the defining characteristic of our age and it requires a new kind of leadership, from everyone.
In this presentation, you will learn:
- What makes forecasts reliable and unreliable.
- The value of experimentation.
- Holding the tension between responsiveness and long term thinking.
- How preparedness beats planning.
Keynote by Margaret Heffernan:
The One Firm Firm
After years of streamlining and hunkering down to weather the crises, what companies now most need to do is pull their people together. Collaboration and innovation are vital skills in global business but where do they come from? How do leading companies get the alignment, trust and energy they need to get their people to work well together? What are the impediments to, and habits of, creative collaborative teams?
Working across cultures, time zones and technology is logistically difficult but it’s usually the human factors that make it hard for companies to achieve their aims. Everyone talks about collaboration but few know how to do it, what it feels like or what organizational structures enable, or disable it. What they all know is that if they can’t figure out how to do it will, others will.
In this presentation you will learn:
- The meaning and characteristics of collective intelligence.
- The business case for collaboration.
- Incentives that make people pull together.
- What gets in the way of teamwork.
- How great leadership teams function.
Keynote by Margaret Heffernan:
Two For One: Seeing Risks/Seizing Opportunity
Big data, market research, social media: we can know more than ever and yet we keep missing the most important trends, information and trends. Why? What makes companies and individuals willfully blind?
Pulling together a century of psychological, industrial and economic research, Margaret Heffernan argues that willful blindness is the biggest risk most organizations face. But the good news is that those companies that confront the issue don’t just reduce their risk; they also make themselves inherently more creative and collaborative. It’s a twofer: when you see more, you can make more and risk less.
In this provocative presentation, you will learn:
- What blinds companies to their risks.
- Why most employees don’t share their knowledge.
- How companies can kill creativity or stoke it.
- The power of noticing and acting on what you see.
- How diversity can make companies smarter.
The human skills we need in an unpredictable world | Margaret Heffernan
Watch Margaret Heffernan in action!
All work is social by speaker Margaret Heffernan at TEDxOxbridge
Watch Margaret Heffernan in action!
The sound of things not being said by speaker Margaret Heffernan
Watch Margaret Heffernan in action!
Books by Margaret Heffernan
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Embracing UncertaintyHow writers, musicians & artists thrive in an unpredictable worldBy Margaret Heffernan -
Wilful BlindnessWhy We Ignore the Obvious at our PerilBy Margaret Heffernan -
UnchartedHow to Map the Future TogetherBy Margaret Heffernan -
A Bigger PrizeWhy Competition Isn't Everything and How We Do BetterBy Margaret Heffernan -
Beyond MeasureThe Big Impact of Small ChangesBy Margaret Heffernan -
Women on TopRedefining power and the nature of success for the 21st centuryBy Margaret Heffernan -
The Naked TruthA Working Woman's Manifesto on Business and What Really MattersBy Margaret Heffernan -
More Than A DreamFeminist UtopiasBy Margaret Heffernan
