Frances Frei

Frances Frei is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School. Her research investigates how leaders create the conditions for organizations and individuals to thrive by designing for excellence in operations, strategy, and culture. She regularly advises senior executives embarking on large-scale change initiatives and organizational transformation.

A global thought leader on leadership and change, Frances is widely recognized for her dynamic teaching and commitment to turning ideas into impact. She developed one of the most popular classes at HBS, which explores business models that reliably delight customers. She also led the design and launch of HBS’s innovative FIELD curriculum, which is built around experiential and immersive learning experiences.

In 2017, Frances took a leave of absence from Harvard to serve as Uber's first Senior Vice President of Leadership and Strategy with a mandate to help thousands of employees excel in a context of hyper-growth and an evolution in culture. Her firsthand experience in Silicon Valley gave her a new lens on trust and informed her viral TED talk on ‘How to build (and rebuild) trust.’ Now viewed by millions, the talk delivers a crash course on stakeholder trust: how to create, maintain, and restore it when lost.

Frances has held extensive leadership roles at HBS, including Senior Associate Dean for faculty development and recruiting, executive education, and faculty chair for the MBA required curriculum. Within each of these roles, Frances led significant change efforts. Highlights include addressing gender gaps in satisfaction and performance for both students and faculty and expanding the reach of executive education to incorporate the evolving needs of leaders and their organizations. 

Frances is the best-selling author of Uncommon Service, Unleashed, and Move Fast & Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems. Hailed as a “masterpiece on trust, leadership, and business,” Move Fast & Fix Things offers a roadmap to accelerating change while caring for employees, customers, and shareholders. She holds a Ph.D. in Operations and Information Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.