Linda A. Hill

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Faculty Chair of the Leadership Initiative. Hill is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and innovation. Hill is the co-author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press 2014), co-founder of Paradox Strategies, and co-creator of the Innovation Quotient, re:Route, and re:Mind. Hill co-founded InnovationForce, a SaaS company using AI and machine learning to accelerate the process of innovation. It was named by _Fast Company as a 2023 “Innovative Company to Watch.” She was named by Thinkers50 as one of the top ten management thinkers in the world in 2013 and 2021 and received the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2015. Hill’s Collective Genius has also been named to the inaugural Thinkers50 Booklist: 10 Management Classics for 2022.

Hill’s research focuses on leadership development, building agile, innovative organizations, and implementing global strategies. Her current research focuses on scaling innovation and digital leadership. She is the author of highly regarded books and articles on leadership. Collective Genius was named by Business Insider as one of “The 20 Best Business Books” and received the Gold Medal for the Leadership Axiom Business Book Award. Hill’s TED talk on how to manage for collective creativity has more than 2.9 million views. In 2015, Hill, along with her co-authors, received the first Warren Bennis Prize for the Harvard Business Review article “Collective Genius,” based on the book. Hill is also the co-author of "Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives of Becoming a Great Leader" and author of "Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership." In 2022, the article “Becoming the Boss,” which is based on the book Becoming a Manager, was selected as one of the most influential and innovative articles from HBR’s first century. Her books and articles have been translated into multiple languages. Hill has authored or co-authored numerous articles: including “Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets;” “Are You a High Potential?” “The Board’s New Innovation Imperative;” “Drive Innovation with Better Decision-Making;” “What Makes a Great Leader?” “Being the Agile Boss;” “Incorporating the Arts to Create Technical Leaders in the Future;” and “Where Can Digital Transformation Take You?”

Hill has chaired numerous HBS Executive Education programs, including the Young Presidents' Organization Presidents' Seminar, the High Potentials Leadership Program, Leading in the Digital Era, Advancing Women of Color in Leadership and Leading and Building a Culture of Innovation. She was course-head during the development of the Leadership and Organizational Behavior MBA required course.

Hill has been at the forefront of developing various innovative on-line development programs for managers, including Breakthrough Leadership, the winner of a Brandon Hall Group Award for Best Advance in Unique Learning Technology, and the award-winning multimedia management development program, High Performance Management. She is currently working on a new online course offering entitled Leading in the Digital World.

Hill is a member of the Board of Directors of Relay Therapeutics and is on the Board of Trustees of the ArtCenter College of Design and of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also a member of the Team8 Fintech Strategic Committee and serves on the advisory boards of several organizations including the American Repertory Theater, the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, the Aspen Institute Leadership Division, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), Eight Inc., the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. She sits on the board of the Global Citizens Initiative, Inc. and is a Special Representative to the Board of Trustees of Bryn Mawr College. Hill is a former member of the Board of Directors of Harvard Business Publishing, State Street Corporation, The Bridgespan Group, The Eaton Corporation, and Cooper Industry. She is also a former member of the Board of Trustees of The Rockefeller Foundation, the Boston Children’s Museum, and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund USA.

Hill’s consulting and executive education activities have been in the areas of leadership development, leading change and innovation, implementing global strategies, digital leadership, and diversity and inclusion. Organizations with which Professor Hill has worked include the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Accenture, AREVA, Google, Hong Kong Jockey Club, IBM, MasterCard, Merck, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Morgan Stanley, National Bank of Kuwait, Novartis, Proctor & Gamble, The Federal Reserve Bank, NASA, RELX, UnitedHealth Group, The Economist, Salesforce.com, and The World Economic Forum.

Hill completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Harvard Business School and earned a Ph.D. in Behavioral Sciences at the University of Chicago. She received her M.A. in Educational Psychology from the University of Chicago. She has a B.A., summa cum laude, in psychology from Bryn Mawr College.