Hari Mann

Business leader, Educator/Teacher, Social entrepreneur

Dr. Hari Mann has spent more than two decades moving between the worlds of business, academia, and public policy — and he's spent that time asking a deceptively simple question: what actually makes organizations innovate, and what makes strategy stick? He is Dean of Hult Ashridge Executive Education, Professor of Strategy & Innovation, and Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. In these roles he leads a diverse faculty and helps shape how leaders and organizations around the world learn, adapt, and grow. Hari began his career at Goldman Sachs in the investment banking division, where he advised senior executive teams on the strategy and integration of companies following major mergers. He went on to the London School of Economics, taking up roles across consulting, research, and teaching. During his time at the LSE, he advised a wide range of FTSE 100 companies on innovation and strategy, and worked with UK and international government departments. He later held senior roles in politics and has advised the UK government on industrial and skills policy. At Hult Ashridge, Hari has served as MBA and Executive MBA Director and as Director of Product Solutions before becoming Dean. His research explores how organizations build the culture, environment, and infrastructure needed to foster innovation and entrepreneurship — and, increasingly, the purpose of finance: how the finance industry governs itself, and how a genuine sense of purpose can drive both good governance and stronger company performance. A believer that great strategy has to be "felt on the shop floor," Hari is known for translating rigorous research into ideas leaders can act on. He argues that innovation isn't the preserve of a select few at the top, but something organizations can design for — and that purpose, far from being a soft ideal, is one of the most powerful engines of lasting growth. On the TEDx stage, he brings the perspective of someone who has sat on every side of the table: banker, academic, adviser, and dean.

I'm passionate about two ideas that, to me, are really one. The first is helping finance rediscover its purpose — moving it beyond the narrow question of what pays toward the deeper question of what it's for, so that capital serves people, builds enduring companies, and creates value rather than just extracting it. The second is education as a force for social good. I believe learning is one of the most powerful tools we have for widening opportunity and changing lives — not a privilege reserved for a few, but a route to fairer outcomes for many. Where these two passions meet is where I've spent my career. When we educate leaders to see finance as an instrument of purpose, and when we open that education to people who've too often been left outside the room, we don't just build better businesses — we build a better society. That's the work I care about most: shaping leaders and institutions that measure their success not only by what they earn, but by the good they leave behind.

We've spent a century asking whether finance can be profitable. The far more urgent question is what it's for, and the answer turns finance from the enemy of purpose into our most powerful tool for delivering it. For a hundred years, finance has been optimized around a single question: does it pay? We've grown extraordinarily good at answering it — and strangely silent on a deeper one. What is finance actually for? We've been taught to see finance and purpose as opposites, profit on one side and principles on the other. But finance is the circulatory system of the economy: it decides what gets built, who gets a chance, and which futures we can afford. That makes it not the obstacle to a better world, but the most powerful instrument we have for creating one. The problem was never finance itself, it's that we stopped asking what it's for. Answer that question, and everything downstream shifts: which companies we back, how we define a good return, what we ask of leaders, and what we're willing to leave behind. Redefine the purpose of finance, and you don't weaken it. You unleash it.

and the purpose of finance and how leadership education can turn all three into better outcomes for business and society. Key areas are Strategy and innovation, apprenticeships, Corporate governance, Entrepreneurship, Executive and management education, innovation, Organizational transformation and change, Skills, Strategy, the future of work and turning strategy into frontline execution, The purpose of finance

In June 2026, I had the privilege of hosting TEDxHultAshridge at Ashridge House. Over one day, twelve of my faculty colleagues stepped onto the stage to share ideas about how leaders really learn — talks designed to spark what we call Learning That Lasts. There were talks on AI and the future of work, on upskilling and organizational transformation, and there were talks I'll never forget precisely because they refused to be ordinary: "Itchy Armpit Moments," doubt as a superpower, the power of the lollipop. From the outside, TEDx looks like a series of polished performances. From where I stood, it was something more human — a room full of people brave enough to share an idea and trust it might matter to someone else. Hosting, I discovered, is its own kind of vulnerability. Your job isn't to be the smartest voice in the room; it's to hold the space so that other people can be brilliant in it. You carry the energy between talks, you honour the nerves behind the confidence, and you remind an audience that every idea worth spreading was once just a half-formed thought someone was afraid to say out loud. Watching colleagues I've worked alongside for years distil a lifetime of practice into a few charged minutes reminded me why I do this work at all. What stayed with me most was how completely the day reflected what I believe: that our capacity to keep learning is the most human thing about leadership, and that ideas only change the world once they're shared. That's the through-line of everything I care about — helping finance rediscover its purpose, and using education as a tool to deliver better outcomes for more people. TEDxHultAshridge was that belief made visible for a day. I came away certain of one thing. The red dot isn't really about the person standing on it. It's about what happens in everyone else when they dare to listen — and then go and build something because of what they heard.

Finding the one person in any room who's about to have a great idea and getting them to say it out loud