Heidi Grant Halvorson

Dr. Heidi Grant is a social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of leadership and motivation. In both 2017 and 2019, she was named one of Thinkers50’s most influential management thinkers globally in their biannual rankings. She is the Director of Research & Development for EY Americas Learning, Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University, and author of the best-selling books:

Reinforcements: How to Get People To Help You, No One Understands You and What To Do About It, Succeed: How We Can All Reach Our Goals, Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing The World for Success and Influence (co-written with E. Tory Higgins), and The 8 Motivational Challenges.

Dr. Grant has appeared regularly on CBS: This Morning, and is also a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, 99u, Fast Company, Business Insider, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today.

Her June 2019 TED talk on motivating others to help you has over 2 million views. She gives frequent keynotes for organizations and speaks regularly at national conferences, primarily on the topics of innovation, influence, leadership, and management. She received her PhD in social psychology from Columbia University, working with Carol Dweck (author of Mindset).

In addition to her work as author and co-editor of the highly-regarded academic book The Psychology of Goals (Guilford, 2009), she has authored papers in her field’s most prestigious journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Social Psychology, and Judgment and Decision Making. She has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation for her research on goals and achievement.

Dr. Grant is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was recently elected to the highly selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology.