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Jonathan Trevor

Associate Professor of Management Practice

Saïd Business School
University of Oxford
Park End Street
Oxford
OX1 1HP

Profile

Dr Jonathan Trevor is a noted management researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher on strategy and organisation.

Jonathan is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School. He teaches on international executive education programmes and the Oxford MBA, Management Diplomas, and Executive MBA.

Jonathan is the author of Align: A Leadership Blueprint for Aligning Purpose, Strategy and Organisation (2019) and Re:Align: A Leadership Blueprint to Overcome Disruption and Improve Performance (2022).

Honours and praise for Re:Align:

  • Bloomberg’s Best Books, business and management, 2022.

Honours for Align:

  • Business Book Awards 2020 finalist.
  • Chartered Management Institute Management Book of the Year 2020, longlist finalist.
  • Financial Times business books of the month, November 2019.

He consults extensively to executive leadership teams in all sectors and internationally to apply his research to help them to transform their organisations to be fit for purpose.

Jonathan’s thought leadership is published in leading journals, including Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. His research regularly features in the media, and he has provided expert comment for the Financial Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Forbes.

He is a Visiting Professor at Waseda Business School, Waseda University, Tokyo; a Subject Matter Expert on Organisational Effectiveness at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, British Army; a Special Advisor at White and Black Legal LLP; and was the 2022 Shimomura Fellow at the Development Bank of Japan, Tokyo.

Previously he was a Lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School and a Governing Body Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. Before his academic career, Jonathan worked as a management consultant in a major international firm and has served in various non-executive director roles. 

He holds a PhD in management studies from the University of Cambridge and received a full Economic Social Research Council scholarship; he was also a visiting doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management under a full scholarship.

Expertise:

  • Strategic alignment and realignment (aligning corporate purpose, strategy and organisation)
  • Business strategy and organisational effectiveness
  • Future of work and next-generation organisation
  • Enterprise leadership and business transformation

Watch Jonathan deliver a keynote conference address.

Read one of Jonathan’s Harvard Business Review articles.

Research

Why do some businesses thrive while many more struggle and fail? And how can enterprises successfully overcome disruption and improve performance?

A key reason – and the focus of Jonathan’s research – is strategic realignment. This is the careful arrangement of the various elements of a business – from its approach to the market to how it is organised – to best support the fulfilment of its long-term purpose. The best-aligned organisations are the best performing.

Most executives recognise that their organisations should be managed in this aligned way. Still, they lack a robust system of thought to allow them to execute strategic alignment effectively and realise its full benefits. There are thousands of organisations globally that are operating below their potential simply because they are not aligned.

Jonathan’s research aims to change this.

“In Align, Jonathan Trevor passionately shares why connecting core purpose, strategy and organization lead to a highly successful and sustainable enterprise. Many of us business leaders have relied on our instincts and experience; now Align articulates an alignment framework that enables us to better bridge these critical components to seamlessly navigate our teams into in the rapidly changing future.” Dame Angela Ahrendts DBE, former SVP, Apple Retail & CEO, Burberry

Learn more about Jonathan’s latest book, Re:Align: A Leadership Blueprint to Overcome Disruption and Improvement Performance.

Visit our Oxford Answers feature on Jonathan’s latest book, Re:Align.

Read about Jonathan’s research on hybrid working in MIT Sloan Management Review.

Read about an example of Jonathan’s research engagement with leading companies, including AXA, Bayer, BNY Mellon, Evonik, HSBC, IBM, JLL, Ricoh, Shell, Siemens, Unilever, Vodafone and Zurich.

Publications

Corporate Values Alignment: Ideation, Codification, and Co-Creation.

  • Journal article
  • Harvard Business Review
  • JONATHAN TREVOR,
  • Masahiro Kotosaka
Organisation Studies

Managing the New Tensions of Hybrid Work

  • Journal article
  • MIT Sloan Management Review
  • J Trevor,
  • M Holweg
Organisation Studies

Re:Align A Leadership Blueprint for Overcoming Disruption and Improving Performance

  • Book
  • Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Jonathan Trevor
Organisation Studies

Why Purpose Matters

  • Journal article
  • Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research
  • JONATHAN TREVOR
Organisation Studies

Is Anyone Paying Attention to Strategic Alignment In Your Company?

  • Chapter
  • Harvard Business Review
  • JONATHAN TREVOR
Organisation Studies
See more publications

Engagement

Jonathan is the recognised authority on strategic (re)alignment and has worked with hundreds of leadership teams worldwide to apply his ideas.

Jonathan coaches and consults extensively with executive leadership teams in all sectors and internationally to apply his research to help them to transform their businesses to be fit for purpose.

Learn more about Jonathan’s consultancy work.

In terms of public engagement, Jonathan is a regular commentator in national and international media, including the Financial Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Forbes.

Read a Forbes feature about Jonathan’s strategic alignment research.

Watch a television interview with Jonathan on CNBC.

Teaching

Jonathan’s teaching is described as authoritative and highly engaging by executives and students alike.

Jonathan is a top-rated teacher on international executive education programmes and Oxford’s Executive MBA, MBA and diploma courses. Jonathan’s approach is to make complex academic concepts easy to understand and impactful by applying them to real-world situations as much as possible.

See an example of one of Jonathan’s highly customised corporate executive education programmes.

Jonathan is the Programme Director for the online Oxford Enterprise Leadership Programme.   

Social media

Get the latest news and updates from Jonathan on social media. 

Oxford Answers

Thought-leadership and insights for business leaders written by our Faculty and Associate Fellows.
View articles by Jonathan.

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