London Business School (LBS) has today announced the launch of the SARI Foundation Institute for Work, Careers and Longevity, the School’s first endowed research institute. The launch holds distinct relevance for the Middle East, where rapid economic diversification in the UAE and Saudi Arabia is reshaping traditional career lifecycles and talent strategy.
The SARI Institute, led by Academic Co-Directors Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, and Herminia Ibarra, Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour, LBS, will generate original research and thought leadership about the ways individuals, organisations and institutions, can support longer working lives that may span six decades.
Through global dialogue, pioneering academic research and practical insight, the SARI Institute will address the most important questions shaping careers, longevity, and business.
The SARI Institute’s launch comes at a pivotal moment for the Middle East, where national economic visions such as the UAE Centennial 2071 are accelerating the demand for adaptable, highly skilled leadership. LBS currently counts over 3,100 alumni across the region, including more than 1,000 in the UAE holding senior roles in finance, government, technology, and family businesses.
Sergei Guriev, Dean of LBS says: “Working lives are getting longer. Traditional structures for individuals, organisations and institutions, were not built for this. The SARI Institute will build the new ideas we need for a world where people can live and work productively for longer.
“I am extremely grateful to our alumnus, whose support has allowed us to create an institute dedicated to improving the world’s understanding of the organisational, leadership and career implications of longer working lives. Lynda Gratton and Herminia Ibarra are renowned thinkers who have defined the field. They will shape global understanding of the ways in which we can reinvent work and careers for the age of longevity.”
Lynda Gratton’s latest book Living the 100-Year Life offers a new way of understanding—and shaping—the years ahead at a time when our lives are stretching but our assumptions about work, careers and identity remain rooted in the past. Herminia Ibarra’s book Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career transformed how we think about career transition, showing people reinvent themselves through experimenting with new roles and identities, not introspection. Her forthcoming book, The Bonus Years: Reinventing our Longer Work Lives argues that the key capability for a longer life is mastering the skill of change itself.
Professor Lynda Gratton says: “We are delighted to be leading an institute focused on the ways in which individuals, organisations and institutions, can enable sustained contribution, renewal and meaning across working lives that may span six decades.”
Professor Herminia Ibarra says: “For too long, the longevity conversation has been dominated by healthcare and pensions, devoting little attention to the psychology of transition – how people experience the profound changes we are experiencing in the world of work, how they navigate those changes and what kind of support they need. We look forward to addressing the crucial questions now on everyone’s mind.”
