Leavey School Prof and Alum Named Top Innovators
A Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business professor, as well as an alumnus, were recently named to Inc. Magazine’s Top 50 Leadership Innovators.
Nilofer Merchant, MBA ’00, and Barry Posner, Accoliti Professor of Leadership, were each honored for their accomplishments and were described as “innovators doing remarkable work, and making a real difference.”
Merchant is an international speaker on management and author of the book, The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy. Much of her research and writing is concerned with ‘The Social Era’ which she describes as follows, “In the Social Era, companies [become] powerful by working with others. While the industrial era was about making a lot of stuff and convincing enough buyers to consume it, the Social Era is about the power of communities, of collaboration and co-creation. In the industrial era, power was from holding what we valued closed and separate; in the Social Era, there is another framework for how we engage one another—an open one.”
Barry Posner served as dean of the Leavey School for 12 years and is the best-selling co-author of The Leadership Challenge, which the book and program’s website describes as “a global campaign to liberate the leader in everyone… we discovered that when leaders are at their personal best there are five core practices common to all: they Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and last but certainly not least, they Encourage the Heart. “
Posner’s TED Talk can be found here. Other honorees on Inc.’s list include Arriana Huffington and Brene Brown.
About the Author
Maggie Boccella
Maggie Boccella, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, is a freelance writer, artist and photographer. She has consulted on various film and multimedia projects, and she also serves as a juror for the city's annual LGBTQIA Film Festival.
