Sandra J. Sucher is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and an internationally recognized trust researcher. The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It, is her third book. It is based on two decades of research on global companies’ best practices and in the gray areas of business—where responsibilities to investors, customers, employees, and society pull companies and their leaders in different directions. She is on the Edelman Trust Institute advisory board, collaborates with Deloitte on TrustIQ™, a proprietary tool that measures key elements of trust in major corporations and public sector organizations, and collaborates with PwC on their Trust Leadership Institute.

At Harvard, Sandra studies how organizations become trusted and the vital role leaders play in the process. She has authored 110 business cases, technical notes, video interviews, teaching notes, and three books. Her 2019 articles on trust were featured as a “big idea” in HBR.org and her 2018 article, “Layoffs That Don’t Break Your Company,” was selected as a Harvard Business Review “Must Read.” Sandra’s textbooks on ethical leadership, The Moral Leader: Challenges, Insights, and Tools and Teaching The Moral Leader: A Literature-Based Leadership Course were called “a ground-breaking approach for education in business ethics.”

Sandra was a business executive for 20 years before joining Harvard. As a senior executive at Fidelity Investments, she measured customer loyalty, redesigned back-office operations, and improved the quality of service. In retailing, she authored the proposal to expand Filene’s Basement from a single-unit business to a national chain. Sandra has served on corporate and nonprofit boards and as Chairwoman of the Better Business Bureau.

Sandra’s research has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Quartz, Business Insider, CNBC, NPR, Marketplace, and in Germany, Latin America, and Japan.

We all need joy in our lives. Here are some things I’m interested in outside of business that I wanted to share—a whole new world of entertainment!