Margaret Heffernan
Communication Skills, Entrepreneurship, International Business, Performance Improvement
Travels from London, United Kingdom
Margaret Heffernan's speaking fee falls
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$30,000 to $50,000
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Margaret Heffernan Profile
CEO, entrepreneur, and author Margaret Heffernan doesn’t play the game; she writes the rules. The experienced television writer, producer, and business woman helps leaders and teams turn insight into action and conflicts into productivity.
Margaret worked for BBC for thirteen years writing, directing, producing and commissioning dozens of documentaries and dramas. Some of her best known projects include Out of the Doll’s House, a groundbreaking look at women’s history in the 20th century, and a thirteen part series on the French Revolution which featured Alan Rickman and Alfred Molina, among many other acclaimed talents. In her post-BBC career she worked, bought, sold and ran businesses for CMGI, serving as Chief Executive of iCast Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and Information Corporation. In the UK, she ran Marlin Gas Trading Ltd. and IPPA, “the most formidable lobbying organization in England.”
Margaret’s books examine how our blinds spots and a tendency to go with the flow have dire consequences. She is the author of eight books including Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Own Peril and her most recent work, Beyond Measure which outlines small steps anyone can take to make their workplace a more nurturing and enjoyable environment.
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- Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, chief executive and author. She was born in Texas, raised in Holland and educated at Cambridge University. She worked in BBC Radio for five years where she wrote, directed, produced and commissioned dozens of documentaries and dramas. As a television producer, she made documentary films for Timewatch, Arena, and Newsnight.
She was one of the producers of Out of the Doll′s House, the prize-winning documentary series about the history of women in the twentieth century. She designed and executive produced a thirteen part series on The French Revolution for the BBC and A&E. The series featured, among others, Alan Rickman, Alfred Molina, Janet Suzman, Simon Callow and Jim Broadbent and introduced both historian Simon Schama and playwright Peter Barnes to British television. She also produced music videos with Virgin Records and the London Chamber Orchestra to raise attention and funds for Unicef′s Lebanese fund.
Leaving the BBC, she ran the trade association IPPA, which represented the interests of independent film and television producers and was once described by the Financial Times as “the most formidable lobbying organization in England.”
In 1994, she returned to the United States where she worked on public affair campaigns in Massachusetts and with software companies trying to break into multimedia. She developed interactive multimedia products with Peter Lynch, Tom Peters, Standard & Poors and The Learning Company.
She then joined CMGI where she ran, bought and sold leading Internet businesses, serving as Chief Executive Officer for InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCAST Corporation. She was named one of the Internet′s Top 100 by Silicon Alley Reporter in 1999, one of the Top 25 by Streaming Media magazine and one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter. Her “Tear Down the Wall” campaign against AOL won the 2001 Silver SABRE award for public relations.
2011 saw the publication of her third book, Willful Blindness (Simon&Schuster in the UK, Bloomsbury in the US and Doubleday in Canada) which was shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Best Business Book award.
She is Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Simmons College in Boston and Executive in Residence at Babson College. She is a Trustee of the London Library and sits on the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and in the UK as well as one the boards of several private companies.
Margaret blogs for the Huffington Post in the US and the UK, for CBSMoneywatch and for Inc.com. She was featured on television in The Secret Millionaire and on BBC Radio 4 in Changing the Rules, which won the 2008 Prowess Media Award. She has had three plays broadcast by the BBC and in 2011 has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath. She is married with two children.
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