Dan Heath

Known for combining an entertaining style with practical insights, Dan Heath weaves together research-based tools, fascinating stories, and a liberal dose of humor. Dan recently released Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen (March 2020), which explores a vital question: Why are we so often trapped in a cycle of reaction—putting out fires, responding to emergencies—when the problems we’re reacting to could have been prevented? Upstream studies leaders who have escaped this cycle and triumphed in preventing major problems: Customer churn. Homelessness. Chronic disease. Dropouts. The book reveals the approaches used by these leaders to overcome problems that were thought intractable.

With his brother Chip, Dan also co-authored four of the most popular business books of the last 15 years: Made to Stick, Switch, Decisive, and The Power of Moments, the last of which explores why certain brief experiences can jolt, elevate and change us—and how we can learn to create these extraordinary moments in our life and work. The Heaths’ emphasis on practicality has given them a broad-ranging audience, and their books have been praised by sources ranging from the Harvard Business Review to the U.S. Army to People magazine.

Dan is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports entrepreneurs who fight for social good. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, Dan was named in 2013 to the Thinkers 50, a ranking of the world’s 50 most influential management thinkers. He has spoken to teachers, police chiefs, U.S. senators, interior designers, Navy admirals, health care leaders, marketers, ministers, and countless executive teams, across 26 countries on 6 continents. (He’s still waiting for that invitation from Antarctica!)