Frances Frei: Why Speed Doesn’t Have to Break Things

Frances Frei is a professor of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School and, together with her partner Anne Morriss, is the bestselling author of Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business; Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You; and Move Fast & Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems. Frances and Anne are #7 in the Thinkers50 Ranking.

In this episode, Frances reveals the three pillars that define the architecture of trust, three key mistakes repeatedly made by organizations, and why “move fast and break things” is actually slower than moving fast and fixing things. Discover:

• Why every trust breakdown can be traced to one of three dimensions: authenticity, logic, or empathy
• Why you should look beyond the “usual suspects” when solving big problems and invite more “unusual suspects” to the table
• Why AI struggles with trust – and the crucial difference between engagement and empathy

This conversation took place in London’s historic Guildhall during the Thinkers50 London Summit & Awards Gala in November 2025, with Frances joining Provocateurs hosts Steve Goldbach, leader of Deloitte’s Sustainability Business in the US, and Stuart Crainer, co-founder of Thinkers50.

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