Axiom Awards
Winner of the 2024 Axiom Business Book Award Gold Medal in the Emerging Trends/AI category for The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI (Harvard Business Review Press)
Dr. Tsedal Neeley
Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration, Senior Associate and Chair of the MBA Program at the Harvard Business School
Tsedal Neeley is the Chair of the MBA program at Harvard Business School, where she is the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration, and founding Chair of the HBS AI Academy. She is recognized as one of the Forbes Future of Work 50, Thinkers50 and 100 people transforming business who are innovating, sparking trends, and tackling global challenges. She focuses on leading transformation through technological innovation and global expansion. She regularly advises organizations on scaling cultural change.
She has authored three award-winning books on organizations, technology, and transformation. The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the age of Data, Algorithms and AI introduces the “30% rule” outlining the minimum technology and change capabilities needed to succeed in a future driven by machine learning and AI. Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere highlights evidence-based best practices in remote and hybrid environments, grounded in over 50 years of research. The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations chronicles the five-year transformation of a globalizing company.
Tsedal’s work has been featured in many media outlets, including television and online platforms. Her teaching and speaking have garnered over 15.5 million views, alongside a widely viewed featured video in TED’s The Way We Work series. Her popular online courses Remote Work Revolution for Everyone and Leading in a Remote Environment (with Ronald Heifetz), have nearly 250,000 learners. She has previously been the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Research. She has taught extensively in the MBA program and previously led the required MBA course Leadership and Organizational Behavior, covering topics such as leadership, teams, change, and organizational alignment with strategic priorities. She has taught extensively in executive education (e.g., Advanced Management Program). She has authored several best-selling HBS cases, including Managing a Global Team, which is the most widely used case worldwide on global and virtual work, as well as her patented software simulation on global collaboration.
Prior to her academic career, Tsedal spent a decade working for companies like Lucent Technologies and The Forum Corporation in various roles, including strategies for global customer experience, 360-degree performance software systems, sales force and sales management development, and business flow analysis for telecommunication infrastructures.
Tsedal is a recipient of the prestigious Charles M. Williams Award for Outstanding Teaching in Executive Education and the Greenhill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Harvard Business School (a two-time recipient). She serves on the Board of Directors of Brown Capital Management, and Rakuten Group, Inc. She previously served on the Board of Brightcove and The Partnership Inc. She received her Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, specializing in Work, Technology and Organizations. Tsedal was honored as a Stanford Distinguished Alumnus Scholar and as the recipient of the School of Engineering Lieberman Award for excellence in teaching and research.
You’ve been a terrific source of insights and perspective on our Englishnization program at Rakuten. I’m sure your guidance and research would be of enormous value to any company’s globalization efforts.
Awards & Honors
Thinkers 50
Recognized as the #10 Thinker in the world by Thinkers50 in 2023
Received the 2018-2019 Robert F. Greenhill Award for Outstanding Service to the HBS Community.
Winner of the 2018 Axiom Business Book Award Bronze Medal in the International Business/Globalization category for The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations (Princeton University Press, 2017).
Included in the 2018 Thinkers50 On the Radar list—a list of “emerging thinkers with the potential to make lasting contributions to management theory and practice.”
Received the 2015 Charles M. Williams Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Awarded the 2012 Marvin Bower Fellowship by Harvard Business School to support research by outstanding scholars.
Honored as a 2013 Stanford Distinguished Alumnus Scholar.
Received the 2006–2007 Stanford University Lieberman Fellowship award at the School of Engineering for excellence in teaching and research.
Stanford University Lieberman Fellowship award at the School of Engineering for excellence in teaching and research.
Recognized as one of the 100 people transforming business
Top Thinkers in the World by Thinkers50
Cases & Teaching Materials
Neeley, Tsedal. “Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO.” Harvard Business School Teaching Note 421-058, January 2021. View Details
Neeley, Tsedal. “Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO.” Harvard Business School Teaching Note 421-058, January 2021. View Details
Neeley, Tsedal. “Six Simple Steps to Action Planning.” Harvard Business School Background Note 421-033, August 2020. View Details
Neeley, Tsedal, and Briana Richardson. “Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (B).” Harvard Business School Supplement 420-073, June 2020. View Details
Neeley, Tsedal, and John Masko. “Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (A).” Harvard Business School Case 420-071, June 2020. View Details
Neeley, Tsedal, Paul Leonardi, and Michael Norris. “Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (B).” Harvard Business School Supplement 419-088, June 2019. (Revised February 2020.) View Details
Neeley, Tsedal, Paul Leonardi, and Michael Norris. “Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A).” Harvard Business School Case 419-066, June 2019. (Revised February 2020.) View Details
Neeley, Tsedal, and Julia Kelley. “The Global-Local Tension: Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao Leading with ‘International Values and Local Roots’ (A) and (B).” Harvard Business School Teaching Note 419-063, June 2019. View Details
Neeley, Tsedal, and JT Keller. “From Globalization to Dual Digital Transformation: CEO Thierry Breton Leading Atos Into ‘Digital Shockwaves’ (B).” Harvard Business School Supplement 419-046, April 2019. View Details
Global Collaboration Software Simulation
This online simulation teaches students about the difficulties in cross-cultural communication and managing global teams. Communicating via chat, teams of 4 or 5 students race against the clock to prepare a VC presentation. Students are assigned the role of a native English speaker or a nonnative English speaker at their organization. The simulation constrains the ways in which the native and nonnative speakers can interact, and the resulting experience replicates communication patterns in real globally diverse and distributed teams. As their team struggles to collaborate, students experience first-hand how communication challenges can interfere with work goals.
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