Lisa Duke Sarl

Professor Lisa Simone Duke is a globally recognised expert in organisational transformation, leadership dynamics, and the human dimensions of change. An internationally respected educator, researcher, and prolific case writer, she specialises in why transformation fails and in the organisational and psychological barriers that prevent strategic intent from becoming operational reality. She supports leaders to build a Human Infrastructure of Performance whether they are leading change/transformation, adoption AI/digital, or looking to grow their organisations.

Her current research focuses on how senior leaders navigate AI adoption, examining the trust and fear dynamics that determine whether digital transformation delivers measurable outcomes or stalls at the level of ambition. Drawing on extensive qualitative research with executives across industries, she brings a distinctive perspective grounded in organisational psychology that helps senior leaders close the gap between what they intend and what their organisations actually hear, and to create the conditions for honest, high-stakes dialogue at the top of complex institutions.

Professor Duke teaches at London Business School (Leading Change, Organisational Transformation, Leading with Impact, Employee Engagement & Positive Psychology, and Interpersonal Dynamics) and at Hanken & SSE (executive education company programmes). She has authored more than 200 published business case studies and is a multiple award-winning case writer. She has worked with senior leadership teams across Europe, the Middle East, and beyond, bringing her research directly into the room with executive cohorts who are managing large-scale transformation under conditions of genuine uncertainty. She has a Doctorat in Digital Transformation (SDA Bocconi, Italy), an MSc in Organisational Psychology (Birkbeck, University of London), and an MBA from London Business School.

To contact her, please email lisa@lsduke.com

Why Am I? Reclaiming Your Story is for senior professionals who have experienced the particular exhaustion of having their work ignored, absorbed, or credited elsewhere. It moves past the question of purpose — what am I for? — to something more fundamental: the account of your professional existence that nobody else gets to write.

Drawing on philosophy, psychology, and one very specific chat message, the book offers a forensic approach to rebuilding an evidenced account of your own professional identity. It ends with three concrete paths forward — staying, changing from within, or leaving — all built on the same foundation.

Short, rigorous and deliberately not consoling.