Amy Bernstein Named Harvard Business Review Editor in Chief

The Harvard Business Review named Amy S. Bernstein as its next editor in chief, per a press release published by the Harvard Business School on February 13. She succeeds Adi Ignatius, who was the Editor in Chief for 16 years before Bernstein was appointed.

Bernstein joined HBR as an editor in 2011. A graduate of Yale College, she began her career in journalism with CBS News. Before joining HBR, Bernstein was the vice president of Global Thought Leadership at ManpowerGroup. She also previously served as executive editor at PwC’s publication, strategy+business and has held editorial positions at The Industry Standard, Brill’s Content, and the U.S. News & World Report.

In addition to her work as the editor in chief of HBR, Bernstein will continue to co-host the award-winning podcast Women at Work with Amy Gallo, a contributing editor at HBR. The podcast started in 2018 and discusses diverse topics that affect women in the workplace.

Ignatius said that given Bernstein’s previous experiences and responsibilities at HBR — which included “running the print magazine” and “modernizing” their learning content— making her his successor was an easy decision.

As a longtime member of HBR, Ignatius said he believes that Bernstein is the best person to represent the HBR as a publication.

“Amy has been my number two for about a decade, and as a new role was created for me, it just made sense to give her the job,” Ignatius said. “Nobody thought that we needed to do a search or anything. She was just ready.”

Ignatius, who has decided to move to the role of editor at large, said he plans to implement new offerings for those in positions of leadership as part of his vision for the future of the organization.

Ignatius said these offerings would serve as “a kind of C-suite playbook to help people solve challenges at the moment” and would include “a series of events, virtual and live.”

“Our readership is predominantly C-suite or people just adjacent to it, so this is an opportunity for us to figure out what it is that this cohort is not getting and make sure we can provide it,” he added.

As HBR continues to serve its readers and expand its brand, Bernstein believes that the publication will utilize new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to innovate its content.

“It’ll certainly help us become more efficient in the way we create and distribute content, but I think it’ll also help us tailor content to our audience, to our subscribers, in a way that will resonate better with them,” she said.

Bernstein also emphasized Harvard’s prominence as an asset for the publication and highlighted HBR’s international reach.

“I can’t imagine a richer resource for us to be able to tap into,” she said. “It’s not the only one we have, we have a much broader base of contributors who come from all over the world, from universities all over the world, from consultancies all over the world, and companies all over the world. So, what we have is privileged access to Harvard.”

—Staff writer Sarah F. Silverman can be reached at sarah.silverman@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Graham W. Lee can be reached at graham.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @grahamwonlee.