Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Founder
Center for Talent Innovation

Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an author, an economist and the founder of the Center for Talent Innovation, a New York based research organization where she now serves as Chair Emeritus. A labor economist with more than 25 years of experience in global talent management, Hewlett has particularly focused on the "value of difference" and the challenges and opportunities faced by women, people of color, LGBT employees and other previously excluded groups. She has forged a signature style of enquiry which blends hard data and rigorous analysis with in-depth story-telling and concrete solutions. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Association.

Hewlett is the author of 17 Harvard Business Review articles and 12 critically acclaimed books, including When the Bough Breaks (winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award); Off-Ramps and On-Ramps; Winning the War for Talent in Emerging MarketsForget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor (named one of the ten best business books of 2013 and an Audible best seller); and Executive Presence (an Amazon "Best Book of the Month," June 2014). She has been recognized as the Most Influential International Thinker by HR magazine and honored by Google with its Global Diversity Award.

Hewlett is a sought-after speaker on the international stage. She has presented at Davos, keynoted the FT's "Women at the Top," and spoken at the Economist's "Innovation Summit," and the Executive Leadership Council. She has appeared on Morning Joe, CNN Headline News, PBS NewsHour, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, The View and BBC World News —and has been lampooned on Saturday Night Live. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, and she's a featured blogger on the HBR Blog Network, the Huffington Post and is an Influencer on LinkedIn. In 2017 she became an external member of the Fox News Workplace Professionalism and Inclusion Council as this company sought to transform its leadership culture.

Hewlett has taught at Cambridge, Columbia, and Princeton universities and has held fellowships at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London and the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard. A graduate of Cambridge University, she won a Kennedy Fellowship to Harvard University. Hewlett earned her PhD in economics at London University.