With his eclectic background, combining academic, consulting and managerial experience, he brings unusual ideas to audiences around the world—offering both provocative and practical insights at the same time. After an early career as an award-winning college professor, Brook entered business, achieving leadership positions in media, technology, and publishing companies. Later, as a partner at McKinsey & Company, he both led the way in the firm’s pioneering work in knowledge management and served Fortune 500 and public sector clients on a range of questions related to organizational change, design, and learning. Brook was also part of the management team that launched Saba Software in 1999, today the leading enterprise-application for managing learning and human capital in the Global 1000. In 2008-2009, he served, with Thomas H. Davenport, as Co-Director of the Babson College Research Institute “Working Knowledge.”

In his later career Brook was an executive vice president at United Way of America and United Way Worldwide, leading the nation’s largest non-profit through strategic transformation as well as overseeing the United Way system’s organizational learning and executive leadership development. Since 2008, Brook has led his own successful consulting practice (Brook Manville LLC), serving a range of “mission-led” organizations including Ashoka, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the New Hampshire Charitable Trust, and Root Cause.

Brook has published widely in areas related to organization, decision-making, knowledge and learning, network development and leadership. His articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Leader to Leader, Fast Company, Sloan Management Review, and he has been profiled in The Economist and other industry publications. He is the author of three books: The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens, 1990; A Company of Citizens: What the World’s First Democracy Teaches Leaders About Creating Great Organizations, 2003: with Josiah Ober; Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories about Big Decisions and the Teams that Got Them Right, 2012: with Thomas H. Davenport.

A frequent speaker at industry events and management meetings, Brook has a special talent for bringing state-of-the-art ideas to the particular interests and issues of his client audiences. Unlike many “travelling thoughtleaders”, Brook believes in tailoring his remarks to engage practitioner listeners and make practical the ideas he shares for ready application. Inspirational and motivating, he is also a solid choice for lifting up the questions organizations are wrestling with today that require urgent action.

Innovation, Creativity, Organizational Behavior, Social Networking, Leadership, Internet, Education