Harvard Business Review - Keeping Top Talent Engaged in Tight Times

About this video
Sylvia Ann Hewlett of the Center for Work-Life Policy discusses how to keep engagement up when business is down.

About Sylvia Ann Hewlett
Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an economist and the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy (CWLP), a nonprofit think tank, where she leads the "Hidden Brain Drain," a task force of 56 global companies and organizations committed to fully realizing female and multicultural talent. In addition, she directs the Gender and Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Gender Gap.

Dr. Hewlett is the author of nine critically acclaimed nonfiction books, including When the Bough Breaks: The Cost of Neglecting Our Children(winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Prize), The War Against Parents (co-authored with Cornel West), Creating a Life(named as one of the best books of 2002 by Business Week), Off-ramps and On-ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success (Harvard Business School Press, named as one of the best business books of 2007 by Amazon.com) and Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business Is Down (Memo to the Ceo) (Harvard Business Press, October 2009).

She is the author of eight Harvard Business Review articles including: "Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives," "Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek," "Stopping the Exodus of Women in Science" "How Gen Ys & Boomers Will Reshape Your Agenda" and "The Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets." Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Veja, and the International Herald Tribune. She is a featured blogger on Harvard Business Online.

Hewlett is the founder of Sylvia Ann Hewlett Associates LLC, a boutique consultancy. In 2009 Sylvia Ann Hewlett Associates formed an alliance with Booz & Company focused on helping organizations leverage top talent across the divides of culture, gender and generation.

Dr. Hewlett has taught at Cambridge, Columbia and Princeton universities and held fellowships at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London and the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard. In the 1980s she became the first woman to head up the Economic Policy Council --a think tank composed of 125 business and labor leaders.

Hewlett is a well-known speaker on the international stage. She has keynoted International Women's Day at the IMF, given the featured address at Pfizer’s Emerging Markets Leadership Summit in Dubai, and spoken at the White House with co-author Cornel West. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, ABC World News, Oprah, The View, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, BBC World News and has been lampooned on Saturday Night Live. A Kennedy Scholar and graduate of Cambridge University, she earned her Ph.D. degree in economics at London University.

You can follow her on Twitter.



Have a wonderful day,
R.