Thinkers50 Hall of Fame: Margaret Heffernan

Margaret Heffernan has been inducted into the
Thinkers50 Hall of Fame 2023.

A former BBC programme producer, Margaret Heffernan has led multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company, and Standard&Poors. She was CEO of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation, and iCast Corporation and was named a top 100 media executive by The Hollywood Reporter.

Margaret has published six books. The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto (Jossey-Bass, 2004) and Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril (Bloomsbury USA, Reprint 2012) explore why and how companies fail to spot major problems, or capture the full intellectual innovative capacity of their people. A Bigger Prize: How We Can Do Better than the Competition (PublicAffairs, 2014) looks at what it takes for individuals and organisations to be truly creative and collaborative: where the barriers to achievement lie and how to overcome them. Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes (Simon & Shuster/TED, 2015) discusses the defining characteristics of sustainably innovative organisations. Her most recent book is Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2020), which explores how individuals and organisations can creatively and productively prepare for an unknowable future. 

Margaret is professor of practice at the University of Bath and lead faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme. She also mentors CEOs and senior executives through Merryck & Co. 

Margaret is a frequent broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and has given several TED talks, including: ‘Dare to disagree’ (2012), ‘The dangers of wilful blindness’ (2013), ‘Forget the pecking order at work’ (2015), and ‘The human skills we need in an unpredictable world’ (2019). She is a regular contributor to the Financial Times.

In this conversation with Stuart Crainer, Margaret talks about her productive career and the inspiration behind her work.

Full press release