Megan Reitz, MA (Cantab), MSc, MRes, PhD

Megan is Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Ashridge where she speaks, researches, consults and supervises on the intersection of leadership, change, dialogue and mindfulness. She is on the Thinkers50 Radar of global business thinkers and HR Magazine's Most Influential listing and has presented her research to audiences throughout the world. She is the author of Dialogue in Organizations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), co-author of Mind Time (Harper Thorson, 2018) and the forthcoming Speak Up! (Financial Times, 2019)

Before joining Ashridge, Megan was a consultant with Deloitte; surfed the dot-com boom with boo.com; and worked in strategy consulting for The Kalchas Group, now the strategic arm of Computer Science Corporation. She was educated at Cambridge University and has a PhD from Cranfield School of Management. She is an accredited executive coach with Ashridge and The School of Coaching.

She advises leadership teams on the quality of their conversations in order to improve mindful decision-making, engagement and innovation. She is also an executive coach and a keynote speaker.

“A powerful book on an important topic. Speak Up helps us understand the subtle elements that contribute to our holding back valuable ideas and observations. Their TRUTH framework – which is as practical as it is rigorous – identifies essential elements to help individuals find their voice. “ Amy Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School, Author, The Fearless Organization (Wiley, 2019)

What you say or don't say in a conversation can have life-defining consequences on ourselves and those around us. Speak Up helps you to navigate power differences so you can speak up with confidence and enable others to find their voice in a way that will be heard.

Our day-to-day conversations define how we see ourselves and how we're seen. The choices we make about what to say and who to say it to are decisive factors in whether we get promoted, or side-lined. Whether we steer clear of trouble, or find ourselves in it up to our necks. With daily scandals hitting the headlines and the continuous need to innovate to survive, creating a more honest, open, fulfilling and productive workplace has never been more pressing.

Our conversational choices harness the ideas and intelligence of the people we work with, or result in that revolutionary concept never seeing the light of day. They make us feel proud or ashamed of ourselves for what we have or have not said. They cause us to flourish and feel motivated, or result in us feeling dissatisfied and resentful.

Speak Up helps you to navigate power differences and speak up with confidence in a way that you will be heard. But it's no good speaking up if there isn't anyone listening so we also help you to understand how your power enables others to speak up and how it might silence them.

Shortlisted for CMI management Book of the Year 2020