Sir Michael Barber, Chief Education Advisor for Pearson, spoke at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health as part of the Voices in Leadership series on December 4, 2014. Watch the entire leadership series at www.hsph.me/voices.

The Voices in Leadership webcast discussion series at Harvard T. H Chan School of Public Health invites leaders to speak about their experiences making decisions that affect global health. Highly interactive and candid, the series is produced in The Leadership Studio for a student audience. The high-definition webcast is streamed live and posted for future viewing. Students learn from experienced leaders about decisions that were effective, decisions that failed, and which decisions, if any, could have been made differently. Watch the entire series at www.hsph.me/voices.

Sir Michael Barber served as principal policy advisor to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and headed the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit responsible for a major overhaul of the British public education and National Health systems. In that role, he developed the concept of the Delivery Unit to direct effective implementation of the government policy, cutting through traditional bureaucratic inertia. This approach has been very successful in the UK and has since been emulated in numerous other countries, the most notable success being Malaysia. Barber is currently Chief Education Advisor at Pearson, where he plays a major role in Pearson’s strategy for education in the developing world. Prior to Pearson, he was a Partner at McKinsey & Company and Head of McKinsey’s global education practice.