
Hal Gregersen
- Ranked among the Top 50 world’s most influential management and business thinkers on the 2021 Thinkers50 list, Hal Gregersen is a Catalytic questioner and global innovator, exploring how asking the right questions builds leadership and innovation, and drives purposeful change.
Hal Gregersen's Videos
Available for
Languages:
- English
Hal Gregersen's 2025 Biography
Hal Gregersen presents with great charm and charisma – his inspirational talks are none the less grounded in concrete examples from the world’s top innovators.
Gregersen received a degree in business administration from the University of Utah and completed a Masters in organizational change in 1983 – adding a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of California five years later. He has taught extensively at leading institutions around the world including the London Business School, the Helsinki School of Economics and the Turku School of Economics as a Fulbright Fellow.
He lives in France where he is Professor in Leadership at INSEAD outside Paris and also resides in Abu Dhabi. He is married and enjoys photography and the arts.
In 2009 Gregersen was the McKinsey Award runner-up for the best article in the Harvard Business Review and received the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management. He has also received several awards for teaching excellence in MBA programmes.
Gregersen’s seminal work is undoubtedly ‘The Innovators DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators’ which is the result of extensive studies conducted alongside Jeff Dyer and Clayton Christensen. In fact it builds on work started by Christensen into the phenomenon of Disruptive Innovation and asks where do these ground breaking ideas come from.
From Amazon to PayPal they concluded that great breakthrough ideas come from the habit of constant questioning and observation together with networking widely amongst those who can offer different perspectives. The study is used as a practical teaching method in workshops and in consultation with leading companies worldwide. He has worked with, among others, Adidas, Coca-Cola, The World Economic Forum and Yahoo. Gregerson is now looking at how these insights can be used in social projects. He has also worked with governments and NGOs and wants to bring on a new generation of innovative leaders.
He has several other books to his name and over 50 articles in journals like the Harvard Business Review and the Journal of International Business Studies. He is a Senior Fellow and consultant on innovation and transformational change at Innosight.
Along with Dyer and Christensen he has developed the Worlds Most Innovative Companies list with Forbes, now in its 2nd year.
Hal Gregersen’s Current/Past Roles & Positions
- Co-author of The Innovators DNA which identifies the winning habits and thought patterns of our leading innovators
- Professor of Leadership at INSEAD as well as author, consultant and speaker
- Wants to use innovative behavior to tackle social issues and to inspire a new generation
Hal Gregersen's 2025 Talks & Topics
When confronted with a problem, our typical response is to look for a pre-packaged solution. But in a world increasingly transformed by technology and riddled with uncertainty, we face problems that have no ready-made answer or past precedent. Employees may think their role is to have all the answers, but in fact, says Hal Gregersen, they should be asking questions – especially when operating on the edge of uncertainty.
Built on his trailblazing research and teaching with colleagues at the MIT Leadership Center, Gregersen delivers a radical reconceptualization of leadership in a world that is in constant flux, answering the fundamental question of how to cultivate leadership that is honed to find and solve problems? As the landscape of work undergoes seismic shifts, he argues that traditional leadership skills are no longer sufficient. Leaders today must excel at problem finding and solving, continually redefining what’s next, and steering their teams through uncharted territories. This keynote is a vital roadmap for leaders who are ready to embrace this new paradigm of challenge-driven leadership.
Is an innovator born or made? This is the question Hal Gregersen, along with the late Clayton Christensen and Jeff Dyer, set out to answer for their bestselling book, “The Innovator’s DNA.” Drawing on his firsthand conversations with 100+ game-changing founders and CEOs – and research from more than 25,000 creative leaders around the world – Gregersen discusses how leaders leverage AI to turbocharge five key skills for solving challenging problems and discovering new markets to fuel economic growth. Gregersen also focuses attendees’ energy on actively developing these skills through brief, high-energy learning activities so they leave thinking and acting differently in their professional work and personal lives.
For all of us, artificial intelligence and exponential technologies are turning the world upside down in terms of what we do, where we do what we do, how we do it, and when we do it. Whether we like it or not, we are being forced to give up habits that worked well in the past and navigate our way through entirely unknown and uncomfortable territory. As individuals and leaders, we are struggling to figure out what’s next, meaning “What new skillset or mindset is worth the effort to engage with?” so that we can make progress in times of extreme transition. In this session, we will explore the power of transition curve leadership and the role of catalytic inquiry in moving ourselves and others forward.
Trained or not, we are all leaders and we are all photographers. The best leaders and photographers have learned how to see beneath the surface of any situation, resulting in an impactful insight or image. The paths to creating both are more similar than different. In this keynote, Gregersen explores five habits for seeing more deeply as a leader and for helping us uncover the hidden forces that hold us back from more meaningful moments and more significant progress.
Hal Gregersen's Latest Books

The Innovator's DNA, Updated, with a New Preface: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators

Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life
Articles & Podcasts
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