Announcing the Thinkers50 Radar, the annual selection of management thinkers to watch
LONDON – Thinkers50, the global platform for management ideas, today announced its prestigious annual Thinkers50 Radar list, featuring 30 people whose work will shape the future of how organisations are managed and led.
The 2020 Thinkers50 Radar list showcases up-and-coming management thinkers from throughout the world, including Italy, Paraguay, Finland, Syria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania, America, Denmark, and the UK.
“This is a deeply diverse, truly global group of thinkers,” says Thinkers50 co-founder Des Dearlove. “It is a powerful selection of entrepreneurs, researchers, advisors, and organisational leaders covering enormous ground – from AI to employee engagement, from achieving transformation in large organisations to creating game-changing strategies to mitigate climate change – these are the people to watch in 2020.”
People power: The need to engage people and to create organisations with engaged employees is at the heart of the message for a number of the thinkers featured in the Thinkers50 Radar this year. Welcoming a new age of HR is Anna Tavis of the NYU School of Professional Studies; the UK’s Lisa Gill champions self-managed teams; Lindred Greer examines power struggles and team-working; Gabriela Teasdale from Paraguay is leading a movement to inculcate leadership into the country’s culture; while Amy Bradley has identified four zones of employee engagement. “The realisation has struck that technology and transformation rely on people power,” says Thinkers50’s Stuart Crainer. “This heralds a new age in how organisations relate to and manage their people.”
Real world impact: Notable practitioners in the Thinkers50 Radar include Michael Arena who heads talent and development at Amazon Web Services (as well as being author of Adaptive Space); Helen Bevan who champions transformation at the UK’s huge National Health Service; and Siobhan McHale who has a track record of delivering change in organisations and is now the author of The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change.
The tech challenge: Making sense of how technology will impact organisations and individuals is a continuing and crucial debate reflected in the work of the Radar class of 2020. Ben Pring is co-author of What to do When Machines do Everything; Kai D Wright makes sense of branding
in the digital age; Simone Cicero de-mystifies platforms; Renée Richardson Gosline looks at the intersection between behavioural science and tech; and Andrei Hagiu examines multi-sided platforms and their unique strategic challenges.
Tackling the world’s biggest issues: In decades past, the emphasis of the work of top management thinkers was on improving organisational and corporate performance. In the 2020 Radar list, however, the same level of imaginative and innovative thinking is focused on solving some of the biggest challenges the world faces today. Among this year’s Radar group are Andrew Winston, the globally recognised sustainability expert; Dan Toma, who is figuring out how to best account for innovation; Kasia Snellman, looking at inequality; and Efosa Ojomo whose research examines how entrepreneurs and innovators can create inclusive economic prosperity.
“Thinkers50 is all about scanning the world for the very best in management ideas. We believe there is nothing so practical as a great idea, so we are continually on the lookout for people who not only originate and articulate ideas, but also put them into compelling practice,” says Des Dearlove. “These thinkers are global, original, and worth watching in the years to come.”
