35 Influential Learning and Development Leaders

Introduction

Most organisations spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars on learning programs that employees forget within a week. The research on this is unambiguous: the vast majority of formal training has no measurable impact on performance six months after delivery. That is not a content problem. It is a leadership culture problem. And the thought leaders who are genuinely changing the field of learning and development understand this distinction better than anyone.

The global learning and development industry has reached an inflection point. According to research from The Josh Bersin Company, 74 percent of organisations report they are not keeping pace with their company's demand for new skills, even though businesses collectively spend $400 billion annually on training, content libraries, learning technology, and consultants. The gap between investment and impact has never been wider, and the pressure to close it has never been greater. In 2026, three forces are colliding simultaneously: artificial intelligence is reshaping how content is created and delivered, skills-based learning is replacing role-based development as the dominant philosophy, and a generation of practitioners is demanding evidence over intuition in every learning decision they make.

The 35 thinkers on this list are navigating all three of these shifts with clarity and rigour. They include research scientists, Chief Learning Officers, independent consultants, podcast hosts, community builders, and practitioners who publish their thinking with generosity and candour. What they share is a commitment to learning that actually works, as measured by behaviour change and business outcomes rather than completion rates and satisfaction scores. They work across instructional design, learning science, neuroscience, learning technology, organisational psychology, DEI, accessibility, and the emerging intersection of AI and human capability.

This list was compiled with an emphasis on genuine contribution to the field, disciplinary diversity, and geographic range. It deliberately includes voices from outside the traditional Anglo-American L&D conversation, because the future of learning is being shaped in Singapore, India, Romania, Australia, and across the African continent as much as it is in London and New York. It also deliberately includes both the established figures whose frameworks underpin the entire profession and the newer practitioners who are challenging those frameworks with evidence and fresh thinking.

If you want to build learning programs that stick, cultures where continuous development is the norm rather than the exception, and measurement systems that tell you what is actually changing in your people, these are the voices worth following. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally, helps leadership teams build the culture, team dynamics, and communication practices that make continuous learning possible. To discuss how Jonno can support your organisation's leadership team through keynotes, workshops, or executive offsites, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why Learning and Development Matters More Than Ever

The skills half-life is shrinking. LinkedIn estimates that 70 percent of job-related skills become outdated every year, which means the employee who completed an onboarding course eighteen months ago may already be working with obsolete frameworks. This is the context in which L&D professionals operate, and it is a context that makes the quality of their thinking more consequential than at any previous point in the profession's history.

The organisations that build genuine learning cultures outperform those that do not by significant margins across nearly every business metric. Research consistently demonstrates that companies with strong learning cultures show higher innovation rates, better talent retention, and faster adaptation to market change. The problem is that most organisations confuse training delivery with learning culture, and that confusion produces expensive programs that do not produce lasting change.

What the thought leaders on this list have in common is a refusal to accept that confusion. They ask harder questions: Is the problem a knowledge gap or a motivation gap? Is the solution a course or a conversation? Does the manager's behaviour support or undermine what the training room is trying to teach? These are uncomfortable questions for organisations that have built entire infrastructures around content delivery, but they are the right questions for any L&D professional serious about making a difference.

If your organisation is ready to build the leadership culture that makes learning stick, Jonno White delivers keynotes and workshops that help leadership teams understand team dynamics, communication styles, and the conditions that enable continuous development. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to start the conversation. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

For more on facilitation approaches that create lasting change, see the post '27 Expert Conference Facilitators' at consultclarity.org/post/conference-facilitators.

How This List Was Compiled

This list of 35 thought leaders in learning and development was assembled through a research process that prioritised four qualities above all others: demonstrated expertise in the field through published work, research, or sustained practice; geographic and disciplinary diversity across the L&D profession; genuine impact on how the field has evolved rather than simply how it has been commented upon; and active engagement with the broader professional community rather than broadcast-only communication.

Candidates were assessed across multiple specialisations including instructional design, learning science, learning technology, neuroscience of learning, AI integration, DEI in learning, accessibility, learning measurement, performance consulting, and organisational learning strategy. The 35 people selected represent more than ten countries and span career stages from established global authorities to emerging practitioners developing new frameworks and communities. Disciplinary diversity was prioritised over institutional affiliation, which is why the list includes university researchers, independent consultants, podcast hosts, Chief Learning Officers at major organisations, and community builders alongside the well-known names that appear on every L&D conference programme.

Category 1: The Architects of Modern Learning Theory

These six thinkers built the intellectual foundations that the entire L&D profession now stands on. Their models, frameworks, and research findings are referenced in virtually every serious learning strategy document produced in the last two decades. Understanding their work is not optional for L&D professionals; it is the baseline.

1. Josh Bersin

The Josh Bersin Company, USA

Few people have shaped the business case for learning and development more profoundly than Josh Bersin. As the founder and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company and a LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 900,000 followers, he occupies a unique position as the profession's most influential research analyst and strategist. His insights reach CHROs, CEOs, and CLOs simultaneously, translating learning science and technology trends into language that drives budget decisions at the highest organisational levels.

His landmark 2026 Definitive Guide to Corporate Learning introduced the concept of Dynamic Enablement, a framework that redefines L&D's role from content delivery to real-time performance support embedded in the flow of work. This research, built on data from hundreds of organisations globally, argues that the era of static training is ending and that the organisations succeeding in 2026 are those that have shifted from education to enablement, from courses to capability, and from satisfaction scores to business performance metrics.

2. Donald H. Taylor

Emerge Education / Learning Technologies Conference, UK

Donald H. Taylor has spent more than 25 years studying, convening, and interrogating how learning actually happens in organisations. As the founder of the L&D Global Sentiment Survey, now in its fifteenth year, and the long-standing chair of the Learning Technologies Conference in London, he occupies a rare position: part practitioner, part researcher, part moderator of the profession's most important conversations. His sentiment survey tracks what learning professionals globally believe matters most, creating a longitudinal record of the field's evolving priorities and blind spots.

His most significant contribution has been his sustained insistence on evidence over enthusiasm in L&D. When new technologies or methodologies arrive with marketing promises attached, Taylor is consistently the voice asking: where is the evidence? Currently serving as Network Chair at Emerge Education and continuing to chair the Learning Technologies Conference, he has helped create one of the world's most respected platforms for genuine inquiry into what works in workplace learning, attracting practitioners who want to engage seriously rather than simply network.

3. Britt Andreatta

7th Mind Inc, USA

The neuroscience of learning is no longer an optional add-on for sophisticated L&D practitioners. It is the intellectual engine driving the field's most important advances, and Britt Andreatta is its most accessible and rigorous populariser. As a researcher, author, and CEO of 7th Mind Inc, she has spent her career translating complex findings from cognitive neuroscience into frameworks that L&D professionals and leaders can apply directly to program design.

Her book Wired to Grow draws on decades of research to explain why most traditional training fails: the human brain is not designed to absorb information in the way most corporate learning programs deliver it. Her framework for brain-based learning design, covering neuroplasticity, the role of emotion in memory formation, and the conditions that support genuine behaviour change, has been adopted by organisations across healthcare, technology, and financial services. Her book Wired to Connect extends this work into team dynamics, exploring how unconscious bias, inclusion, trust, and purpose shape the conditions that allow, or prevent, genuine team learning.

4. Charles Jennings

70:20:10 Institute, UK/Netherlands

Any serious conversation about how adults learn at work eventually arrives at the 70:20:10 model, and Charles Jennings is its most prominent champion and co-developer. The model's insight, that 70 percent of development happens through on-the-job experience, 20 percent through relationships and feedback, and only 10 percent through formal training, fundamentally challenged the classroom-centric orthodoxy that dominated corporate L&D for decades. Jennings has spent more than 40 years studying workplace learning, and his work through the 70:20:10 Institute continues to influence how organisations design their learning ecosystems.

His contribution extends beyond the model itself to the systemic thinking it requires. Accepting 70:20:10 means accepting that L&D cannot control most of where learning happens, which demands a fundamentally different relationship between the learning function and the line management community. Jennings' writing and consulting work has helped thousands of organisations make that conceptual shift and redesign their approaches accordingly.

5. Nick Shackleton-Jones

Shackleton Consulting, UK

Few voices in L&D have challenged the profession's assumptions as consistently and provocatively as Nick Shackleton-Jones. As the CEO of Shackleton Consulting and the author of How People Learn, he has spent years arguing that most corporate learning is based on a fundamentally incorrect model of how human beings actually develop knowledge and change behaviour. His affective context model reframes the question from how do we deliver content to how do we create the conditions in which people want to learn.

His 5Di approach, which stands for Define, Discover, Design, Develop, and Deploy, has influenced instructional designers and learning strategists who are looking for alternatives to the ADDIE model that better reflect how people actually engage with learning in a distracted, time-poor environment. His LinkedIn posts, which frequently challenge conventional L&D wisdom with rigorous and occasionally provocative logic, have built him a community of practitioners who appreciate intellectual honesty over comfortable consensus.

6. Philippa Hardman

Independent Learning Scientist, UK

Philippa Hardman occupies a distinctive position in the L&D landscape as a learning scientist whose work bridges academic research and practical application with exceptional clarity. Her DOMS methodology, standing for Desirable Difficulties, Output-focused learning, Metacognition, and Social learning, synthesises decades of cognitive science research into a framework that learning designers can apply without needing a PhD in educational psychology. Her Substack newsletter has become a required reading source for evidence-informed L&D practitioners globally.

What distinguishes Hardman's contribution is her timing: she has emerged as a leading voice at the precise moment that AI is disrupting learning design, and her research-grounded perspective on what AI can and cannot replace in human learning has provided an invaluable counterbalance to the technology vendor marketing cycle. Her analysis of AI-generated learning content and its actual impact on learning outcomes is among the most rigorous work currently being produced in the field.

Category 2: Learning Strategy and Culture Builders

These practitioners work at the level of organisational systems, helping companies shift from event-based training to genuine learning cultures. Their expertise spans CLO leadership, learning measurement, strategic partnership with business units, and the organisational design questions that determine whether any L&D investment produces lasting change.

7. Laura Overton

Independent Research and Consulting, UK

Laura Overton has devoted more than 35 years to understanding what separates learning functions that produce measurable business impact from those that produce completion statistics. As the founder of Towards Maturity, she led a 15-year longitudinal research programme that surveyed tens of thousands of learning leaders globally, creating the most comprehensive data set ever assembled on L&D effectiveness. Her research consistently identified the conditions that distinguish high-performing learning organisations: strong alignment with business strategy, manager involvement in learning design, measurement tied to performance outcomes rather than activity metrics, and a culture of psychological safety that treats learning as continuous rather than episodic.

Her work distils this research into a practical maturity model that L&D teams can use to assess their current effectiveness and identify the highest-priority improvements. Now working independently, she continues to publish research and consulting insights that draw on this unparalleled longitudinal data set to help learning leaders make better strategic decisions.

8. Cathy Hoy

CLO 100, UK

With more than two decades of experience as a senior learning leader at British Gas, Expedia, Tesco, Coca-Cola European Partners, and Soho House, Cathy Hoy brings the kind of hard-won practitioner wisdom that no amount of academic training can replicate. She has lived through every major disruption in L&D over the past two decades and brings to each a calm strategic intelligence that distinguishes genuine expertise from informed commentary.

As the founder of CLO 100, she has created a professional development community specifically designed to help senior L&D leaders navigate the challenges of the CLO role with peer support, practical frameworks, and honest peer-to-peer exchange. Her LinkedIn content consistently offers the operational detail that practitioners in senior learning roles need most: how to align with CFOs, how to build business cases for L&D investment, how to lead teams through technology transitions without losing the human quality of the work.

9. Andy Lancaster

Reimagine People Development, UK

Andy Lancaster has dedicated his career to the question of how learning actually drives performance, not theoretically, but in the messy, under-resourced, politically complex reality of organisational life. As a Chief Learning Officer and the author of Driving Performance Through Learning, he has consistently pushed back against the tendency in L&D to measure activity rather than impact. His framework for performance-focused learning strategy insists that every learning investment should be traced back to a specific performance outcome that matters to the business.

His current work at Reimagine People Development focuses on helping organisations fundamentally rethink their approach to capability building, moving from a push model of content delivery to a pull model where learners access what they need in the moment they need it. He has received international recognition for his contribution to the L&D profession and speaks regularly at major conferences including Learning Technologies UK.

10. Dani Johnson

RedThread Research, USA

Learning and development has a measurement problem, and Dani Johnson has made it her life's work to solve it. As a principal analyst at RedThread Research, she produces some of the most rigorous independent research on the intersection of learning, skills, talent, and technology available anywhere in the profession. Her work on skills-based organisations, how companies can shift from job-based to skills-based models of talent management, has become essential reading for any L&D leader navigating the current transformation of workforce architecture.

What distinguishes Johnson's research is her combination of quantitative rigour and practical interpretability. She does not produce academic papers that practitioners cannot use; she produces reports, frameworks, and analyses that help CLOs make better decisions about technology investment, program design, and measurement strategy. Her regular publishing cadence and active LinkedIn presence have made her one of the most reliable sources of evidence-based insight in a field that sometimes favours narrative over data.

11. Lori Niles-Hofmann

EdTech Strategy Consulting, Canada

The intersection of educational technology and learning strategy is where Lori Niles-Hofmann does her most important work. As an independent consultant who has advised organisations across healthcare, financial services, government, and higher education on their learning technology strategy, she brings a perspective that is both deeply technical and thoroughly human-centred. Her concern is not which platform is newest or most feature-rich, but whether the technology actually serves learners and produces the outcomes organisations need.

Her book The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation is a practical guide for learning leaders navigating major technology transitions, covering everything from stakeholder alignment and change management to data governance and the ethical use of AI in learning. Her LinkedIn content regularly challenges the hype cycle that surrounds new learning technology, providing the sceptical, evidence-grounded counterpoint that practitioners need to make responsible investment decisions.

Category 3: The Instructional Design Innovators

These practitioners are transforming how learning experiences are actually created, the craft of designing content, assessments, and interactions that produce genuine learning rather than the illusion of it. Their work draws on cognitive science, user experience design, accessibility research, and performance consulting to produce learning that works.

12. Julie Dirksen

Independent Instructional Design Consultant, USA

The question Julie Dirksen asks at the start of every learning design project is deceptively simple: what do you want people to do differently? Her book Design for How People Learn, now in its second edition, has become the most widely recommended resource in the instructional design community precisely because it asks this question relentlessly and refuses to proceed until the answer is clear. The book draws on cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, and user experience design to produce a comprehensive framework for creating learning experiences that actually change behaviour.

Her ongoing consulting work focuses on helping organisations distinguish between knowledge gaps and motivation gaps, a distinction that fundamentally changes the design approach required. A learner who does not know something needs information. A learner who knows what to do but does not do it needs a different kind of intervention entirely. Dirksen's ability to diagnose which problem is actually present before designing a solution has saved countless organisations from spending enormous resources on the wrong intervention.

13. Cathy Moore

Independent, USA

Action mapping is one of the most practically useful frameworks in the instructional design world, and Cathy Moore is its creator. The methodology starts with the business goal and works backwards through the performance gaps that stand between the current state and that goal, identifying learning solutions only for the gaps that are actually caused by lack of knowledge or skill. This sounds straightforward, but it represents a fundamental departure from the way most organisations approach training design, which begins with content rather than performance.

Moore's clients have included Microsoft, IKEA, Merck, Oracle, and the United Nations, and her consulting work over more than two decades has built a body of case studies demonstrating that action mapping consistently produces training programs that are shorter, cheaper, and more effective than those designed through conventional approaches. Her blog, active for more than fifteen years, remains one of the most practical and evidence-grounded resources available to practising instructional designers globally.

14. Devlin Peck

Devlin Peck (independent), USA

Instructional design has a talent pipeline problem: the skills required to practise the discipline effectively are neither widely taught in universities nor easily transferred from classroom teaching. Devlin Peck has spent the past decade addressing this problem by creating one of the most comprehensive online learning resources for aspiring and developing instructional designers anywhere. His YouTube channel, which has attracted more than 73,000 subscribers, covers everything from portfolio development and tool selection to learning theory and career strategy with a clarity and generosity that has made him the most trusted voice for people entering or advancing in the field.

His ATD Outstanding Professional Award recognition reflects not just the quality of his content but its impact: Peck has directly shaped the career paths of thousands of instructional designers globally, many of whom have entered the field without a traditional ID background and needed a trusted guide to help them develop competence and confidence. His work exemplifies the democratisation of L&D expertise that is one of the most positive developments in the profession over the past decade.

15. Patti Shank

Independent Learning Researcher, USA

Patti Shank is the practitioner's researcher, someone who reads the cognitive science so that instructional designers do not have to, and then translates the findings into specific, actionable guidance for creating learning experiences that produce genuine retention and transfer. Her work on practice and feedback design, spaced repetition, retrieval practice, and cognitive load management draws on decades of peer-reviewed research and converts it into design principles that any skilled instructional designer can apply immediately.

Her books, including Write and Organise for Differentiating Instruction and Improve Online Learner Performance, focus on the specific craft decisions that determine whether a learner will remember and be able to apply what they have encountered. In an industry that sometimes privileges technology novelty over pedagogical quality, Shank's consistent advocacy for evidence-based design has made her an essential counterweight and a trusted reference point for practitioners who want to ground their work in what the science actually says.

16. Connie Malamed

eLearning Coach (independent), USA

Visual learning design is an underappreciated component of effective instructional design, and Connie Malamed has spent her career demonstrating why it matters. As the creator of the eLearning Coach blog and podcast, she has built one of the most comprehensive and practically useful resources on visual and instructional design available anywhere online, covering topics from information architecture and data visualisation to accessibility, cognitive load management, and the specific design decisions that determine whether learners can process and retain visual information.

Her book Visual Language for Designers draws on research in visual cognition to create a framework for making design decisions that serve learners rather than simply aesthetics. Her ongoing contribution to the instructional design community through her podcast and blog has influenced thousands of practitioners who have learned to think more carefully about how visual presentation supports or undermines the learning experience.

Category 4: The Technology and AI Frontier

These practitioners are working at the leading edge of how technology is changing the nature of learning itself. They include AI researchers, learning technology analysts, and practitioners exploring how platforms, data, and artificial intelligence can make learning more personalised, accessible, and effective, without losing the human quality that makes learning meaningful.

17. Christopher Lind

Christopher Lind Co, USA

Christopher Lind holds a distinctive position in the L&D space as someone who understands both the technology and its limits with equal clarity. As a LinkedIn Top Voice and Chief AI Strategist at Christopher Lind Co, he has built a reputation for analysis that is neither technophobic nor credulous. He examines what AI tools actually do to learning processes, what they cannot do, and what L&D professionals need to understand to use them responsibly and effectively.

His work is particularly valuable for L&D leaders who feel pressure to adopt AI tools without yet having a framework for evaluating which problems those tools actually solve. Lind's analysis consistently returns to the question of whether technology is serving the learner or whether the organisation is serving the technology, a distinction that becomes more consequential as AI tools proliferate and the stakes of poor implementation rise.

18. Matt Beane

UC Santa Barbara, USA

Matt Beane asks a question that most L&D professionals have not yet fully confronted: when AI takes over the routine and instructional dimensions of work, how do junior employees develop the skills they used to acquire by watching, imitating, and gradually taking over work from senior colleagues? His book The Skill Code, published by HarperCollins in 2024, documents this problem across multiple industries including surgery, financial services, policing, and offshore drilling, and argues that the loss of traditional apprenticeship pathways is a learning crisis hiding inside an AI success story.

His research at the University of California Santa Barbara draws on extensive fieldwork to show how organisations can redesign work to preserve the learning opportunities that AI is inadvertently eliminating. His analysis has particular relevance for L&D professionals designing onboarding programs, mentoring frameworks, and capability building pathways in organisations that are rapidly automating routine tasks.

19. Sinead Bovell

WAYE, Canada/international

The future of work is a topic crowded with commentators, but Sinead Bovell brings a genuinely distinctive voice to the conversation. As the founder of WAYE, a platform dedicated to preparing young professionals for the technological and economic transitions reshaping the global workforce, she combines rigorous research on AI and automation with an accessible, optimistic, and equity-focused perspective that distinguishes her from the more crisis-oriented voices in the space.

Her LinkedIn content reaches a global audience with analysis of how AI is changing skill requirements, what organisations must do to prepare their workforces for that change, and how young people specifically can navigate a labour market in rapid transition. Her focus on equity, ensuring that AI transformation does not widen existing gaps in opportunity and access, gives her work a moral dimension that complements the technical and strategic analysis that dominates most AI-and-work commentary.

20. Ross Stevenson

Steal These Thoughts, UK

Ross Stevenson has built one of the most genuinely useful L&D brands in the UK through his Steal These Thoughts newsletter, podcast, and LinkedIn presence. His content consistently addresses the questions that L&D practitioners actually face in their daily work: how to get manager buy-in for learning initiatives, how to use AI tools responsibly without losing the human quality of the work, how to build learning programs on constrained budgets, and how to measure what actually matters rather than what is easy to count.

What distinguishes Stevenson's contribution is his willingness to share honest failures alongside his successes, and his consistent focus on the operational realities of L&D practice rather than the aspirational frameworks that dominate conference stages. His community at Steal These Thoughts has become a genuine gathering point for practitioners who want rigorous, honest, peer-level conversation about the challenges of the profession.

21. David James

360Learning, UK/international

David James brings a combination of practitioner credibility and platform perspective to L&D discourse that is relatively rare. As the Chief Learning Officer at 360Learning and the host of The Learning and Development Podcast with more than 500,000 downloads, he occupies a position that gives him both operational experience in building learning programs at scale and a platform for curating the profession's best thinking through long-form conversations.

His podcast has become one of the most trusted resources in L&D, bringing together researchers, practitioners, CLOs, and learning designers for conversations that go deeper than most conference presentations. His own thinking on collaborative learning, the idea that the most effective learning in organisations happens when colleagues share expertise with each other in structured ways, has influenced how 360Learning has developed its platform and how organisations using it think about learning design.

Category 5: Community Builders and Learning Culture Champions

These practitioners have built the networks, communities, and platforms that enable learning professionals to develop their own expertise. They understand that the health of the L&D profession depends on practitioners having spaces to share, challenge, and develop their thinking together.

22. Lavinia Mehedintu

Offbeat, Romania/international

Lavinia Mehedintu has created something rare in the L&D space: a genuine community of practice for learning professionals that prioritises intellectual depth over networking. As the co-founder of Offbeat, she has built a platform where L&D practitioners can engage seriously with research, share honest reflections on their practice, and challenge each other's thinking in ways that conference booths and LinkedIn comments cannot accommodate.

Her own writing on L&D trends, social learning, behaviour change, and the professional development of learning practitioners is consistently among the most thoughtful content produced in the field. As a Romanian professional operating globally, she also brings a perspective that enriches conversations about how L&D is practised in contexts outside the Anglo-American mainstream, an important addition to a field that sometimes mistakes English-language discourse for universal practice.

23. Sukhvinder Pabial

L&D Connect / Marks and Spencer, UK

Sukhvinder Pabial has built his contribution to L&D on two parallel tracks: his practical work within organisations and his community-building through L&D Connect, which he co-founded as a platform for peer learning and professional development among UK-based L&D practitioners. His combination of operational credibility and community orientation has made him one of the most respected figures in UK L&D, valued not only for the quality of his own thinking but for the generosity with which he shares it.

His LinkedIn writing draws on his experience at Marks and Spencer to explore the psychology of learning, the practical challenges of embedding learning culture in complex retail organisations, and the specific dynamics of running L&D in environments where learners are time-poor, geographically dispersed, and operating in physically demanding roles. This operational specificity gives his insights a usefulness that more abstract commentary often lacks.

24. Michelle Ockers

Learning Uncut, Australia

Michelle Ockers has positioned herself as one of the most thoughtful voices on L&D strategy and professional practice in the Asia Pacific region and, through her podcast Learning Uncut, globally. As a Chief Learning Strategist and host of the Learning Uncut podcast, she focuses on practical questions of how L&D teams can create value for their organisations, questions of strategy, measurement, stakeholder management, team capability, and the daily decisions that determine whether a learning function succeeds or is perpetually marginalised.

Learning Uncut has become one of the most respected L&D podcasts in the world by focusing on practitioners sharing real experience rather than experts delivering polished keynote material. The honesty and operational specificity that characterises the conversations Ockers facilitates have made it a genuine professional development resource for L&D practitioners in Australia and beyond.

25. Leanne Hughes

First Time Facilitator, Australia

Leanne Hughes works at the intersection of L&D and facilitation, helping practitioners build the skills they need to design and lead learning experiences that actually engage people rather than simply moving through content. As the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and a highly active LinkedIn contributor, she has built a community of facilitators and L&D practitioners across Australia and internationally who are developing their confidence and capability in the design and delivery of learning experiences.

Her work is particularly valuable for the large number of L&D practitioners who find themselves facilitating workshops and training programs without having received systematic facilitation training. Her content is accessible, practical, and grounded in her own extensive facilitation experience across corporate, government, and nonprofit contexts. As an Australian voice in a field dominated by American and British perspectives, her presence on this list reflects the genuine quality of L&D practice across the Asia Pacific region.

26. Hadiya Nuriddin

Duets Learning, USA

Hadiya Nuriddin is a talent development leader, author, and facilitator whose work focuses on the full arc of L&D practice, from needs analysis and instructional design through program delivery and impact measurement. Her book StoryTraining: Replacing PowerPoint Instruction with Core Learning Conversations explores how narrative can be used to create learning experiences that stick in ways that conventional presentation-based instruction cannot.

Her 2023 ATD Outstanding Professional Award recognised both the quality of her individual contribution and her role in helping other L&D professionals develop their practice. As a Black woman in a field that has historically underrepresented both Black practitioners and practitioners who bring explicitly social justice frameworks to their work, her presence and visibility in L&D discourse has contributed to a broader conversation about whose expertise gets recognised and amplified in professional communities.

27. Naphtali Bryant

RAC Leadership, USA

Naphtali Bryant has spent more than sixteen years leading L&D teams at some of the world's most recognisable organisations, including Warner Brothers and Netflix, and he brings to his public presence an unusual combination of accessibility enthusiasm and systems-level strategic thinking. His principle of EASY learning, standing for Engaging, Accessible, Simple, and Yielding impact, has resonated with practitioners who are looking for a practical framework that connects learning design quality to the organisational outcomes that L&D is supposed to produce.

His advocacy for accessibility in learning is particularly significant. At a time when many L&D teams treat accessibility compliance as a technical checkbox rather than a design philosophy, Bryant makes the case that genuinely accessible learning is not just ethically required but pedagogically superior. His LinkedIn Top Voice recognition reflects both the quality and the reach of his contribution to the L&D community.

28. Ashley Hinchcliffe

MAAS Marketing, UK

The relationship between marketing thinking and L&D practice is underexplored in most professional conversations about the field, and Ashley Hinchcliffe has positioned herself as the person who is changing that. As the Managing Director of MAAS Marketing and a sought-after speaker on the topic of L&D marketing, she argues that learning professionals need to understand how to market learning within their organisations just as rigorously as any external marketer understands their audience.

Her work focuses on the specific challenge of driving learner engagement: how do you persuade time-poor, distracted, often sceptical employees to invest their attention and energy in learning experiences? The answer, she argues, involves understanding learner motivations, designing compelling communications, and building a brand for the learning function that creates positive anticipation rather than reluctant compliance.

Category 6: Workplace Culture, Inclusion, and the Human Dimension

These practitioners work at the intersection of learning, human behaviour, organisational culture, and social equity. They bring perspectives from organisational psychology, diversity and inclusion, emotional intelligence research, and workplace design to the question of how organisations can build environments where people actually want to learn and grow.

29. Liz Fosslien

Independent, USA

Learning is inseparable from emotion, and Liz Fosslien has spent her career helping organisations understand that truth through an unusual and highly effective combination of research and illustration. Her bestselling book No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, co-authored with Mollie West Duffy, explores how emotions shape performance, decision-making, collaboration, and learning in ways that most organisations are structurally designed to ignore.

Her distinctive visual style, combining data-driven insights with hand-drawn illustrations that make complex emotional and psychological concepts immediately accessible, has made her one of the most widely shared LinkedIn voices on the human dimensions of work. For L&D professionals, her work provides both a compelling business case for emotionally intelligent learning design and specific frameworks for understanding how anxiety, motivation, shame, and curiosity shape learners' experiences.

30. Amber Cabral

Cabral Co., USA

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are learning challenges at their core, and Amber Cabral has built her career on the insight that cultural change in organisations requires the same rigorous design thinking as any other learning intervention. As the founder of Cabral Co. and a LinkedIn Top Voice who has worked with organisations including Walmart, she brings an operational perspective on what it actually takes to shift the behaviour of people in large, complex, hierarchically structured organisations toward greater inclusion.

Her work at Walmart involved orchestrating cultural change at a scale that few L&D professionals ever encounter, and the lessons she has drawn from that experience about how formal learning programs relate to informal social learning, manager behaviour, and structural incentives have made her one of the most practically useful voices in the DEI space. Her LinkedIn content refuses to treat DEI as a sensitivity training problem with a straightforward curriculum solution, insisting instead on the systemic and behavioural complexity that genuine inclusion requires.

31. Harlina Sodhi

Believe in Yourself, India

Harlina Sodhi represents the growing energy and sophistication of L&D practice in India, where the combination of a massive workforce development challenge and a highly skilled talent development community has produced some of the most creative and evidence-informed thinking in the global profession. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Believe in Yourself and a top HR influencer on social media, she works at the intersection of leadership development, L&D strategy, and organisational culture change.

Her focus on building high-performance cultures, understanding what leaders, managers, and HR professionals need to do differently to create environments where people grow, connects the L&D function to the broader organisational development challenges that most companies face when they try to scale capability. Her active presence on LinkedIn and speaking engagements at major HR conferences have established her as a significant voice not just in India but in the global conversation about people development.

32. Shannon Tipton

Learning Rebels, USA

Shannon Tipton has spent her career fighting for a version of L&D that centres the learner rather than the organisation's content delivery needs. As the founder of Learning Rebels, she works with L&D teams that are trying to modernise their approach, moving from compliance-driven, content-heavy programs toward learner-centred, performance-focused experiences that respect the time, intelligence, and autonomy of the people they are designed to serve.

Her book Disruptive Learning: Learning Design Principles for Learning Practitioners is a manifesto for this modernisation, arguing that many L&D teams have built infrastructure that serves the function's administrative needs rather than the learner's development needs. Her eLearning Top 100 Movers and Shakers recognition reflects the genuine influence her work has had on practitioners who are navigating the transition from traditional training delivery to a more dynamic, agile, and learner-centric model.

Category 7: Research, Measurement, and the Evidence-Based Future

These practitioners are building the evidentiary foundations that the L&D profession needs to hold itself accountable. They work at the intersection of learning science, data analysis, research methodology, and professional practice, producing the knowledge that allows the field to move from intuition to evidence.

33. Will Thalheimer

Work Learning Research, USA

Will Thalheimer has dedicated more than 25 years to what he calls research-to-practice: the disciplined work of reading peer-reviewed research on learning and translating its findings into specific guidance that L&D practitioners can apply. His Performance-Focused Smile Sheets framework reimagines the ubiquitous end-of-training evaluation form as a tool for capturing leading indicators of learning transfer rather than simply measuring participant satisfaction, a distinction that matters enormously for any L&D team trying to demonstrate genuine impact.

His myth-busting work, systematically examining popular L&D concepts like the learning styles theory and various claims about visual versus auditory learners, has contributed enormously to a more evidence-literate L&D profession. In an industry where persuasive anecdote often travels faster than rigorous evidence, Thalheimer's patient, methodical dismantling of unsupported claims has improved the quality of decision-making among practitioners who follow his work.

34. Stella Collins

Stellar Labs, UK

The application of neuroscience to learning design requires both scientific accuracy and practical accessibility, and Stella Collins has spent her career demonstrating that these qualities are not in tension. As the co-founder of Stellar Labs, she helps organisations design learning experiences that reflect what the science of the brain actually says about attention, memory consolidation, emotional engagement, and the conditions that support genuine skill development.

Her work on AI and learning brings the same scientific rigour to the question of how artificial intelligence tools affect human learning processes, where they support the conditions for effective learning and where they undermine them. As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent in organisational L&D, her research-grounded analysis of what that content does and does not produce in terms of actual learning is increasingly valuable for practitioners and CLOs navigating rapid technology change.

35. Jonno White

Consult Clarity, Australia

The people on this list are the thinkers. Jonno White is the person you bring in when your leadership team is ready to act on what they are saying. As a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally, and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast with 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries, Jonno works with organisations that want to translate insight into culture change, team dynamics into action, and leadership development into measurable results.

Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with more than 6,000 participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. He delivers keynotes, Working Genius team workshops, DISC communication sessions, executive offsites, and strategic planning facilitation for schools, corporates, and nonprofits globally. Many organisations find that flying Jonno in from Brisbane costs less than engaging high-profile local providers, and international travel is often far more affordable than clients expect. Whether virtual or face to face, to discuss how Jonno can help your team act on the insights these 35 leaders are generating, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Assembling a list of 35 from a field with hundreds of genuinely talented and active contributors inevitably means leaving out people whose work deserves recognition. Clark Quinn of Quinnovation has spent decades advocating for evidence-based learning design with characteristic intellectual rigour and deserves to be on any serious list in this space; his primary publishing focus has shifted toward long-form research and his shorter content output has slowed in recent periods. Karl Kapp at Bloomsburg University has done more than almost anyone to legitimise gamification as a serious learning design strategy rather than a gimmick, and his academic position gives his work a credibility that distinguishes it from vendor advocacy. Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies, created the annual Top Tools for Learning survey that has become the profession's most reliable barometer of technology adoption. Elliott Masie has been a thought leader in eLearning since before the term was widely used and his MASIE Learning Foundation continues to produce genuinely useful research at the intersection of learning and technology. Nelson Sivalingam of HowNow has built one of the most interesting learning platform companies in the UK and his thinking on learning in the flow of work is worth following closely.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Engaging with L&D Thought Leadership

The most expensive mistake organisations make when consuming L&D thought leadership is confusing inspiration with implementation. The ideas that circulate in L&D discourse are powerful frameworks, but most organisations adopt the language before they build the practice. A leadership team that can discuss retrieval practice at a conference dinner but has not changed a single training design decision based on the concept has gained nothing. The practitioners on this list are worth following because their work is usable, not merely interesting.

A second common mistake is following thought leaders from a single disciplinary perspective. The L&D professional who reads only instructional design content will miss the strategic and measurement conversations that determine whether their programs survive budget cuts. The CLO who reads only learning technology analysis will miss the learning science that determines whether their platform investments produce genuine outcomes. The richest professional development comes from the deliberate cultivation of diverse voices, reading the researcher alongside the practitioner, the technology analyst alongside the measurement specialist, the neuroscientist alongside the culture builder.

A third mistake is treating thought leadership as a substitute for evidence. Many ideas circulate in L&D with the force of consensus that they do not actually have in the research literature. The practitioners on this list who do the most important work are those like Will Thalheimer and Patti Shank who consistently point back to the peer-reviewed evidence and resist the temptation to claim more certainty than the data supports. Following these voices develops the critical thinking that helps practitioners distinguish genuine insight from persuasive storytelling.

A fourth mistake is ignoring geographic diversity in the voices you follow. The dominant L&D discourse is Anglo-American in origin, and while the ideas it generates are often genuinely valuable, they reflect a specific set of organisational structures, labour market conditions, and cultural assumptions about learning that do not travel without adaptation. The inclusion of voices from India, Romania, Australia, and Canada on this list reflects a deliberate effort to surface thinking that genuinely expands the range of what the profession considers possible.

A fifth mistake is focusing on the thought leaders rather than the thinking. The goal of following these practitioners is not to accumulate intellectual affiliations but to develop your own capacity to think clearly about how people learn, how organisations can create conditions for learning, and how learning investments can be measured and improved. The best indicator that you are engaging with thought leadership well is that you are increasingly able to generate your own useful insights about your own organisational context.

Implementation Guide: Building Your L&D Learning Practice

The practical first step in engaging with the L&D thought leaders on this list is building a deliberate following system rather than a passive one. Following twenty-five people on LinkedIn and scrolling past their content when the algorithm delivers it is not a professional development strategy. A genuine approach involves identifying five to seven practitioners whose focus area most directly addresses your current professional challenges, following them with intentional attention, and engaging with their content in ways that develop your own thinking rather than simply consuming theirs. Leave a comment that extends the idea rather than simply affirming it. Write a short reflection on how their framework applies to your own context.

The second step is creating a system for translating insight into practice. The L&D practitioners who develop fastest are those who consistently attempt to apply one new idea to their actual work within a fortnight of encountering it. This requires a simple capture system where you record the ideas that seem most actionable and the specific experiments you will run to test them. The best thought leaders on this list provide frameworks that are designed to be tested, not simply adopted wholesale, and treating their work as hypotheses to investigate rather than conclusions to accept will accelerate your development considerably.

The third step is finding your community. Several of the practitioners on this list have built communities specifically designed for L&D professionals who want peer-level exchange rather than expert-to-novice consumption: Offbeat, L&D Connect, and the communities around the Learning Rebels and Steal These Thoughts brands offer spaces where the ideas you encounter in LinkedIn posts and podcasts can be tested, challenged, and refined in conversation with other practitioners. For more on how facilitation communities and executive team development can complement L&D strategy, see the post 'Executive Team Offsite Facilitators' at consultclarity.org/post/executive-team-offsite-facilitators.

Fourth, build a regular reading and listening practice rather than a reactive one. Choosing three podcasts and listening consistently over six months will produce more professional development value than sampling thirty podcasts for a single episode each. The Learning Uncut podcast hosted by Michelle Ockers, The Learning and Development Podcast hosted by David James, and the First Time Facilitator podcast hosted by Leanne Hughes are three of the most consistently valuable in the field.

Finally, consider the relationship between thought leadership consumption and original contribution. The field of L&D benefits most from practitioners who do not only consume ideas but test, adapt, and share them. The thought leaders on this list began as practitioners who shared their thinking; many of the next generation of L&D voices are practitioners who are currently doing the same.

Jonno White delivers keynotes and workshops that help leadership teams build the culture and dynamics that make learning possible. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss your team's needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential thought leaders in learning and development globally?

The most influential thought leaders in learning and development globally span multiple specialisations. Josh Bersin is the field's most prominent analyst, whose research on corporate learning strategy and technology shapes investment decisions at the CLO and CHRO level. Donald H. Taylor has spent more than two decades convening the profession's most important conversations through the Learning Technologies Conference and his annual L&D Global Sentiment Survey. Britt Andreatta brings neuroscience research to learning design in a way that is both scientifically rigorous and practically accessible. Charles Jennings, co-developer of the 70:20:10 model, fundamentally changed how organisations think about where learning actually happens.

How was this list of 35 thought leaders compiled?

The list was assembled through a research process that prioritised four qualities: demonstrated expertise through published work, research, or sustained practice; genuine impact on how the L&D field has evolved; geographic and disciplinary diversity across the profession; and active engagement with the professional community. Candidates were assessed across more than ten specialisations including instructional design, learning science, neuroscience, AI integration, DEI in learning, accessibility, measurement, performance consulting, and organisational learning strategy. The final 35 represent more than ten countries and span career stages from globally recognised authorities to emerging practitioners developing new frameworks.

What is the difference between a learning and development professional and a Chief Learning Officer?

A learning and development professional can occupy any role within the L&D function, from instructional designer and facilitator to learning technologist and learning strategist. A Chief Learning Officer is the senior executive responsible for the entire learning function, setting strategy, managing the team, aligning with business leadership, and ultimately being accountable for the learning organisation's contribution to business outcomes. Not all organisations have a CLO; some embed learning leadership within the CHRO role or within individual business units. The thought leaders on this list include both CLOs and independent practitioners, reflecting the reality that the most important thinking in L&D is not exclusively produced by those at the top of organisational hierarchies.

How is AI changing learning and development in 2026?

AI is changing L&D in at least four significant ways. First, it is transforming content creation, making it faster and cheaper to produce eLearning modules, assessments, and learning materials, while simultaneously raising important questions about quality, accuracy, and the role of human instructional design expertise. Second, it is enabling more personalised learning delivery. Third, as Matt Beane's research documents, it is eliminating many of the on-the-job learning opportunities that have traditionally been the most effective development context for new employees. Fourth, it is changing the skills that workers need to develop, accelerating the shift toward skills-based learning strategies that focus on human capabilities that are genuinely difficult to automate.

How do I choose which L&D thought leaders to follow?

The most useful approach is to identify your two or three most pressing professional challenges and then find the practitioners on this list who focus most directly on those challenges. If you are struggling to demonstrate learning impact, Will Thalheimer, Laura Overton, and Dani Johnson are your priorities. If you are redesigning instructional design practice toward a more evidence-based approach, Julie Dirksen, Cathy Moore, and Patti Shank are where to start. If you are navigating an AI strategy for your learning function, Christopher Lind, Matt Beane, and Sinead Bovell are the most relevant voices.

Can I hire someone to run leadership and team development workshops connected to L&D strategy?

Yes. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally, works with organisations that want to translate L&D insight into leadership culture change and team performance. Jonno delivers Working Genius team workshops, DISC communication sessions, executive team offsites, strategic planning facilitation, and keynotes for schools, corporates, and nonprofits globally. He achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating at the ASBA 2025 National Conference and is trusted by organisations across Australia, the UK, the USA, Canada, Singapore, India, and beyond. International travel is often more affordable than organisations expect. To discuss your team's needs, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

What are the most important L&D conferences to attend in 2026?

The most significant L&D conferences in 2026 include Learning Technologies in London, which brings together thousands of European L&D professionals for the continent's most important annual gathering on workplace learning technology and practice. The ATD International Conference in the USA remains the largest global gathering of talent development professionals. DevLearn in Las Vegas focuses specifically on learning technology and is particularly valuable for practitioners in eLearning and digital learning design. For Asia Pacific practitioners, the L&D Asia conferences in Singapore and Malaysia offer regional networking and strategic insight. Several of the thought leaders on this list, including Donald H. Taylor, David James, Michelle Ockers, and Andy Lancaster, are regular speakers at these events.

Final Thoughts

The learning and development profession is experiencing the most significant transformation in its history, driven simultaneously by artificial intelligence, skills-based organisation design, a growing evidence base about how learning actually works, and a generation of practitioners who are demanding more from themselves and from the field. The 35 people on this list represent the quality of thinking that this moment requires: rigorous, generous, diverse, and focused on outcomes rather than activity.

The field needs researchers who translate cognitive science into practical design principles, practitioners like Philippa Hardman, Patti Shank, and Will Thalheimer who ensure that the profession is grounded in what the evidence actually says. It needs strategists like Laura Overton, Cathy Hoy, and Dani Johnson who can help learning functions make the case for investment in a language that CFOs and CEOs understand and trust. It needs community builders like Lavinia Mehedintu, Ross Stevenson, and Sukhvinder Pabial who create the spaces where practitioners can develop their own thinking rather than simply consuming other people's ideas.

Most of all, it needs the organisations that employ learning professionals to understand that L&D impact depends less on the quality of the courses they produce than on the quality of the leadership culture they operate within. The most sophisticated learning strategy in the world will fail in an organisation where managers undermine learning through their daily behaviour, where psychological safety is absent, and where leaders treat development as a compliance requirement rather than a genuine investment. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast with listeners in 150+ countries, works with organisations to build that foundational leadership culture. Whether your team needs a Working Genius workshop, a DISC communication session, an executive offsite, or a keynote that gives people the language to lead differently, Jonno delivers experiences that create lasting change. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to start the conversation.

For organisations dealing with the difficult conversations and accountability challenges that determine whether any learning initiative actually translates to behaviour change, Jonno White's Step Up or Step Out (available at Amazon) provides the practical framework that leadership teams need to have the conversations that matter.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits across the UK, India, Australia, Canada, Mongolia, New Zealand, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, USA, Finland, Namibia, and more. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read: 27 Expert Conference Facilitators (2026)

Finding the right conference facilitator is one of the highest-stakes decisions an event organiser makes. The facilitator determines whether your speakers' insights translate into audience action, whether your panels produce genuine discussion rather than prepared talking points, and whether your delegates leave with energy and direction rather than information overload. A great facilitator is invisible in the best possible sense: the experience feels seamless, the conversations feel organic, and the outcomes feel inevitable.

After facilitating executive team offsites across four continents and conference sessions for audiences of hundreds, the differences between effective and ineffective facilitation become very clear very quickly. The most common mistake is confusing a charismatic presenter with a skilled facilitator. Presentation and facilitation are related but distinct skills, and the conference that hires a great speaker to facilitate its workshop tracks is unlikely to get great facilitation.

Keep reading: consultclarity.org/post/conference-facilitators