12 Facts About Margaret Heffernan

Margaret Heffernan was born on 16 June 1955 and is an entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker.

Margaret Heffernan is currently a professor of Practice at the University of Bath School of Management in the UK.

Margaret Heffernan teaches entrepreneurship, mentors executives as part of a leadership development company, and makes presentations for corporations, associations, and universities.

Margaret Heffernan attended Cambridge University and received a Master of Arts degree.

Margaret Heffernan was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of Bath in 2011, where she is a regular lecturer in the university's MBA program.

In 2008, Margaret Heffernan appeared in the British Channel 4's series Secret Millionaire, in which successful entrepreneurs go undercover to identify and support community heroes.

Margaret Heffernan's talk "Dare to Disagree" illustrated the role that debate and disconfirmation play in the development of great research teams and businesses.

In May 2015, Margaret Heffernan gave a TED talk at TEDWomen 2015, titled "Why it's time to forget the Pecking Order at Work", that highlighted how social capital makes candor safe, encouraging more frequent conflicts and leading to better outcomes.

Margaret Heffernan cites examples of willful blindness in the Catholic Church, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Nazi Germany, Bernard Madoff's investors, BP's safety record, the military in Afghanistan and the dog-eat-dog world of subprime mortgage lenders.

In Beyond Measure, Margaret Heffernan looks back over her decades spent overseeing different organizations and comes to a counterintuitive conclusion: it's the small shifts that have the greatest impact.

Margaret Heffernan argues that building the strongest organization can be accelerated by implementing seemingly small changes, such as embracing conflict as a creative catalyst; using every mind on the team; celebrating mistakes; speaking up and listening more; and encouraging time off from work.

Margaret Heffernan was named one of the Internet's Top 100 by Silicon Alley Reporter in 1999, one of the Top 25 by Streaming Media magazine and one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter.