The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau
A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are our greatest innovation challenges—risky, transformative, and ultimately worthwhile.
We treat innovation as an investment: something that we do, regardless of how difficult, risky, or potentially unsuccessful it may be, because it’s worth it. Why not treat our biggest social challenges the same way? That is the question posed by SARAH KAPLAN, a former McKinsey alum turned premier MBA professor. In her rousing talks, she shows us how to reposition our biggest struggles—gender equality, diversity, the environment—into innovation challenges that will transform our organizations, making us more creative and more resilient along the way.
In her latest book The 360° Corporation, Kaplan reveals how companies, from Nike to Walmart, have risen to meet the challenges of modern business—where the name of the game is no longer to turn a profit, but to turn a profit while making a positive contribution to society. Combining razor-sharp business savvy with a rigorous academic approach, she offers an eloquent and strategic plan for leaders, managers, and executives hoping to create lasting, transformative change.
“As business leaders, we evaluate and make trade-offs every day. Sarah Kaplan has prepared a cogent guidebook to help turn these events into strategic opportunities to capture value.”— Dave Stangis, VP of Corporate Responsibility, Campbell Soup Company
Kaplan also serves as the Director at the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) at the Rotman School of Management. There, she zeroes in specifically on solving gender inequality (another innovation challenge), both in the world of business and the economy at large.
Prior to The 360° Corporation, Kaplan co-authored the bestseller Creative Destruction, as well as Survive and Thrive: Winning Against Strategic Threats to Your Business. She was formerly a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (where she remains a Senior Fellow), and has cultivated nearly a decade of consulting and innovation experience at McKinsey & Company. Her previous research has covered biotechnology, fiber optics, financial services, nanotechnology, and most recently, the field emerging at the intersection of gender and finance. Kaplan completed her doctoral research at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and holds a BA with honors in Political Science from UCLA, and an MA in International Relations and International Economics with distinction from Johns Hopkins University.
Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at Wharton 2024 "Top 40 Under 40" Business Professor Author, Femonomics (Forthcoming)
Instant New York Times Bestselling Author of The Story of Art Without Men 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 Europe Guardian Columnist Art Historian and Curator
Anti-Ageism Activist Author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism Co-Founder of the Old School Hub
Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at Wharton 2024 "Top 40 Under 40" Business Professor Author, Femonomics (Forthcoming)
Performance psychologist Head of the MLB Players Association Mental Health Division Former Director of Mental Conditioning for the New York Giants Author of Life as Sport
Author of Rage Becomes Her and The Resilience Myth Award-Winning Journalist Co-Founder and Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project
Author of Indivisible: How to Forge Our Differences into a Stronger Future Founder and CEO of WatchHerWork
Author of The 272: The Families who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church Associate Professor at New York University Former New York Times Johannesburg Bureau Chief
Author of The State Must Provide: The Definitive History of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education Staff Writer at The Atlantic
Author of Grit, the #1 New York Times Bestseller | Pioneering Researcher on Grit, Perseverance, and the Science of Success
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Creator of The 1619 Project | Executive Producer of the Emmy Award-Winning 1619 Project Hulu Docuseries | MacArthur Genius
Nike's Former Chief Marketing Officer | Author of Emotion by Design
CEO of The Atlantic | Former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED
Bestselling author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism | Harvard Business School Professor Emerita | Activist and scholar
Our quest for gender equality in the economy has plateaued. In an attempt to reignite progress, many organizations are making an economic argument for diversity, suggesting that hiring more women is good for business. But Sarah Kaplan—a University of Toronto Distinguished Professor of Gender and the Economy—argues that the “business case” may actually be doing more harm than good. It sends signals that women need to be better than men in order to be included in corporate leadership. In this talk, Kaplan busts the myth of meritocracy, showing us how it unintentionally reinforces privilege and actually stagnates progress toward gender equality. Instead of making a business-minded argument, she explains how treating the diversity challenge as an innovation problem will net bigger rewards.