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Dr. Laura Empson is Professor in the Management of Professional Service Firms at Bayes Business School, University of London, and holds Research Fellowships at both Harvard Law School and the University of Cambridge.

She has dedicated 30 years to researching professionals, professionals, and the professions, and is a globally recognised expert in their leadership and governance.  Her research also explores organisational and cultural change; growth and leadership transitions; mergers and acquisitions; professional careers; and the future of professional work.

In addition to dozens of publications in leading academic journals, she has published several books with Oxford University Press – her first was Managing the Modern Law Firm (2007), and her latest is Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas (reprinted in paperback, 2022). 

Laura serves on the editorial board of Organization Studies and the Journal of Management Studies. She is a founder member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) and a member of the Peer Review College of the ESRC.

She advises many of the world’s leading law, accounting, and consulting firms.  From 2013 to 2016, she served on the Board of KPMG LLP (becoming Chair of the Independent Non-Executives). 

Laura was previously an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford.  Before becoming an academic, Laura worked as an investment banker and strategy consultant.  She has a PhD and MBA from London Business School.


A Quote From This Episode

• "I use the phrase ‘intellectual junk food.’ I think that a lot of leaders are raised on a diet of intellectual junk food because that is what’s saleable...By contrast, some of our academic world is so mired in ambiguity and subtlety that it never even gets itself published...we need the balance. "

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Podcast: Leading Professional People
• Laura's Articles
  • HBR -  Ways to Prepare for the Future of Work
  • HBR - How Has the Past Year Changed You and Your Organization?
  • HBR - How to Lead Your Fellow Rainmakers

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professi

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