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Having an edge is about gaining an advantage, but it goes beyond just an advantage. It’s about recognizing that others will have their own perceptions about us, right or wrong. When you recognize the power in those perceptions and flip them in your favor, you create an edge—and your hard work works harder for you.

Join Laura Huang, acclaimed business professor at Harvard University and author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, as she discusses with Julia Lee Cunningham how to use everything to your advantage, even your perceived flaws and the systemic biases that hold you back. Laura shares how to harness the very stereotypes and qualities that seem like shortcomings and reframe them as assets that work in your favor. And by doing so, you will find and create your own unique edge.

About Huang:  
Laura Huang is a professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Laura’s research examines interpersonal relationships and implicit bias in entrepreneurship and in the workplace. She is the creator and co-founder of Project EMplify, an initiative dedicated to addressing inequality and disadvantage through personal empowerment.

Her award-winning research has been featured in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Nature, and she was named one of the 40 Best Business School Professors Under the Age of 40 by Poets & Quants, and to the Thinkers 50 Radar list as one of the leading management thinkers in the world.

Previously, she held positions in investment banking, consulting, and management, for organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, IBM Global Services, and Johnson & Johnson. Laura holds an MS and BSE in electrical engineering, both from Duke University, an MBA from INSEAD, and a PhD from the University of California, Irvine. Her first book is entitled EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage.

Host:  
Julia Lee Cunningham, Faculty Co-Director, Center for Positive Organizations; Associate Professor of Management and Organizations

About the Positive Links Speaker Series: 
The Positive Links Speaker Series, presented by Michigan Ross’ Center for Positive Organizations, offers inspiring and practical science-based strategies to build and bolster thriving organizations. Attendees learn from leading positive organizational scholars and connect with our community of academics, students, staff, and leaders.

Series Sponsors: 
The Center for Positive Organizations thanks Sanger Leadership CenterTauber Institute for Global OperationsSamuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, and Diane (BA ‘73) and Paul (MBA ‘75) Jones for their support of the 2022-23 Positive Links Speaker Series.

Series Promotional Partners: 
Additionally, we thank Ann Arbor SPARK and the Managerial and Organizational Cognition (MOC) Division of the Academy of Management for their Positive Links Speaker Series promotional partnerships.