Polly LaBarre

In a world awash in profound change and at a time when everything is on the table, Polly LaBarre helps leaders make sense of and creatively respond to the forces buffeting their organizations. A bestselling author, speaker, and thinker who’s advised top global organizations, LaBarre’s mission for the past 20 years has been to make every kind of organization fundamentally more resilient, innovative and inspiring. Her insights embolden and equip leaders at every level to make a meaningful impact. LaBarre is an inspiring and provocative voice on the big ideas and important questions that will shape the future of organizations, work, and collective progress.

LaBarre’s work is driven by three core questions: 1) How do we support human flourishing? 2) How do we cultivate the audacity of imagination required to tackle our most intractable problems? 3) And, how do organizations and individuals change how they change to become endlessly resilient?

To make genuine progress on those questions, LaBarre studies and works with progressive organizations, creates curriculum, and runs experiments for unleashing creativity, expanding collaboration, and accelerating change.

As cofounder of the Management Lab (with Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini), LaBarre spent the last decade working to develop a methodology, platform and practical tools for building organizational capability and accelerating change. LaBarre and her colleagues deployed that pioneering approach to collaborative innovation in a range of large-scale experiments in “hacking management” inside leading companies and across a global community of some 35,000 management innovators.

LaBarre is the coauthor of the bestselling book "Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win" (which The Economist named a “Book of the Year” and called “a pivotal work in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great”). She was a member of the original team of Fast Company magazine, where she played a central role in the remarkable success of a magazine that recast the conventional wisdom on working, leading, and winning.

A sought-after speaker, moderator, and interviewer, LaBarre has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses around the world and developed and hosted numerous events. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Fast Company, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune.com, the McKinsey Quarterly, and The Huffington Post. In addition to frequent television appearances on CNBC, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, Good Morning America, and the Today Show, LaBarre has also been a business and innovation correspondent for CNN where she produced regular segments on big ideas and best practices from the world of business and beyond.

LaBarre is a passionate (and experimental) gardener, an ardent cook, and a devoted yogi. She serves on the board of CitySeed, a nonprofit working to build a just and healthy food system and economic opportunity in New Haven, CT. A graduate of Yale University, LaBarre lives with her family in New Haven.