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Learn More About Kate Isaacs
Dr. Kate Isaacs is a scholar, teacher, and strategy advisor who designs organizations and stakeholder partnerships for people and places to thrive. She draws on design thinking, system dynamics, and developmental psychology to help leaders create conditions for collective intelligence, agile performance, and transformative change.
She is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she teaches courses on Discovering Your Leadership Signature and Distributed Leadership: Cultivating Nimble Organizations. A recent interview with Dr. Isaacs and her colleagues about their work on Nimble Leadership was selected for publication in HBR at 100: The Most Influential and Innovative Articles from Harvard Business Review’s First Century.
Dr. Isaacs is currently launching a new MIT Sloan Executive Education program in 2024, Businesses for Inclusive Local Thriving Lab (BILT-Lab) for business-led teams to accelerate their impact on local talent development, workforce participation, and community prosperity. She also teaches short MIT executive courses on topics of Leading with Purpose and Optimizing Team Performance with a focus on inclusive innovation and human thriving.
Dr. Isaacs is an Executive Fellow at the Higher Ambition Leadership Alliance, where she serves as lead faculty for HALI, a 9-month leadership development program for senior business executives, and hosts CEOs Leading Local, a peer learning network of business coalitions that are driving social and economic change in their communities.
Dr. Isaacs consults with organizations in all sectors on strategy and culture change, and she specializes in designing peer-based learning experiences and facilitating multi-stakeholder collaborations. She is a certified Shadow Work coach and is trained in Internal Family Systems therapy. She is co-founder of the Listening Challenge to support people in having conversations across the political divide. She emphasizes the positive potential in people and organizations—noticing and expanding what is already working—and releasing obstacles that block our natural orientation towards joy, creativity, growth, and health.
She is a dynamic and engaging speaker who delivers inspiring keynote addresses to corporate audiences. She is a frequent author on topics of leadership, innovation, systems change, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and corporate sustainability for publications including the Harvard Business Review, the Sloan Management Review, strategy+business, Chief Executive, The Hill, and The Conversation.
Dr. Isaacs holds a PhD in Organization Studies from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an M.S. degree in Technology and Policy from the MIT Engineering Systems Division, an M.S. degree in Conscious Evolution from the Graduate Institute, and a B.S. in Biology from the Oakland University Honors College.
She lives in Concord, Massachusetts with her family, and loves running, biking, painting, yoga, skiing, gardening, tending chickens, adventures with her kids, and repairing stuff around the house. She occasionally commutes to Colorado in the winter, where she finds no greater joy than telemark skiing in fresh Rocky Mountain powder.
Kate Isaacs is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group®.
The Business Benefits of Inclusive Local Thriving
January 25, 2024
The Business Leader’s Guide to Navigating Geopolitical Risk
November 15, 2023
How Business Coalitions Can Have a Strong Local Impact
April 29, 2022
Why Distributed Leadership Is the Future of Management
April 19, 2022
How Corporate Clout Helps Communities Thrive
November 24, 2021
The 3 Leadership Types in a Nimble Organization
November 1, 2021
How AEP Is Powering An Appalachian Community To Thrive
September 8, 2021
Why CEOs are Pushing for Community Prosperity
January 6, 2021
3 Ways to Build a Culture of Collaborative Innovation
August 12, 2019
Nimble Leadership
July - August 2019
How to Give Your Team the Right Amount of Autonomy
July 11, 2019
The Flywheel Philosophy
September 20, 2018
4 Ways CEOs Can Conquer Short-Termism
February 24, 2017