Mary Shapiro

Mary Shapiro has focused on advancing individuals of multiple social identities into leadership for the past 30 years—as an Organization Behavior professor, Chair of Leadership Development at Simmons University, and now as a Fellow of Simmons’ Institute of Inclusive Leadership and faculty member in Harvard’s School of Continuing Education. Concurrently, Shapiro continues to work with individuals to make their best contributions by navigating the often unintentional or invisible barriers that impede their path to leadership. She consults with organizations to build inclusive work cultures and with teams to build the relationships and processes necessary to produce innovative, high-quality output. Her driving principle is building cultures that enable all people to fully contribute.

Shapiro researches and publishes in the areas of women and their careers; organizational efforts to move toward gender equity; and teams. In addition to journal articles, her books include The HBS Guide to Leading Teams, published by Harvard Business School Press, which captures strategies and stories from 30 years of working with teams. She also co-authored two books on interviewing and career strategies that recognize the nuances of many dimensions of diversity. Her case studies, distributed through Harvard Business School Press, feature women protagonists leading change, leading ethically, leading as introverts, and transforming organizational work cultures. She developed the Communication Styles Diagnostic, an online tool used by thousands of managers to improve their effectiveness with individuals and teams.

Throughout her career, Shapiro has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, private institutions, non-profits, and start-ups, including CVS, Liberty Mutual, The Brookings Institution, Axon/Taser, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Partners HealthCare. She works with numerous Boards of Directors and, for 12 years, served on the Executive Board of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts (GSEMA).