Frances Frei is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management and the course lead for first-year diversity and inclusion studies at Harvard Business School. Her research investigates how leaders create the conditions for organizations and individuals to thrive by designing for excellence in strategy, operations, and culture. She regularly advises senior executives embarking on large-scale change initiatives and organizational transformation, including embracing diversity and inclusion as a lever for improved performance.

Early life

Frances X. Frei graduated from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where she earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics. She subsequently earned a master's degree in industrial engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and a PhD in Operations and Information Management from the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

Career

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 strategy, operations, and culture. She regularly advises senior executives embarking on large-scale change initiatives and organizational transformation, including embracing diversity and inclusion as a lever for improved performance. Frei is exclusively represented for speaking engagements by United Talent Agency. Topics include communication, corporate culture, corporate social responsibility, crisis management, diversity and inclusion in business, gender equality, HR effectiveness, leadership, and LGBTQIA. Frei joined

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), packa ...

in June 2017, where she was appointed as senior vice-president for leadership and strategy of leadership. She helped improve the company culture by encouraging teamwork. Frei stepped down as senior vice-president in February 2018 to develop an executive education program focused on women and underrepresented minorities, although she has stayed on in an advisory role. Frei gave a talk at the

TED conference TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

in 2018 on the topic of building trust. Frei was hired as a senior adviser to Riot Games in September 2018 to help with implementation of their "Culture and Diversity & Inclusion Initiative", following a published report outlining many former and current employees there asserting of sexual discrimination within the workplace.

Personal life

Frei is

married Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

to Anne Morriss. She has two sons.

Works

* *Frei, Frances; Morriss, Anne (2020). Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press.

External links

TED talk 2018, How to build (and rebuild) trust. TED Interview 2019, A radical new theory on how we experience reality.

References

Living people Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni Harvard Business School faculty American women academics American women in business Uber people Lesbian academics Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women {{US-business-academic-bio-stub