Annie Peshkam

Annie Peshkam, PhD, is a Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour whose teaching and research focuses on how leaders and organisations learn, unlearn, and adapt when established knowledge, assumptions, and ways of working no longer hold. As work is reshaped by rapid technological and organisational change, she asks what it takes to let go of what we know and grow as leaders through uncertainty and transformation.

In open enrolment and custom programmes, including the INSEAD Coaching Certificate programme and Amer Sports, Annie combines research from the learning sciences and Organisational Behaviour with live leadership dilemmas, experiential learning, original cases, reflection, and coaching. Her work begins with the leader’s own experience, then extends to their teams, roles, and the cultures they shape. She creates learning environments in which leaders can notice and question their assumptions, make sense of what is unfolding, and experiment with new ways of responding. She sees coaching not simply as an interpersonal skill, but as a leadership and learning practice that helps people strengthen their own capacity to learn while inviting others to learn with them.

Annie began her academic work as a learning scientist, studying how children and students construct and revise their understanding of the world and respond to their social environments. Her research examined how readers distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, how students question the assumptions embedded in media, and how children navigate challenges relating to one another. Across this work, she became interested in how prior knowledge, relationships, and contexts, shapes people's capacity to notice and let go of what no longer serves them. For over a decade, she brings these questions into her work on how leaders understand learning and letting go, how leaders and teams unlearn together, and how organisations develop the capacity to change.

As Director of INSEAD’s Initiative for Learning Innovation and Teaching Excellence, and as a coach on several of INSEAD’s executive education programmes, Annie has been associated with INSEAD for many years. Her understanding of how leaders develop is grounded in practice. She has coached many faculty, executives, and leaders of learning inside organisations, witnessing how development unfolds when people are under pressure to perform. This perspective grounds her publications and shapes what she brings to programme design.

Annie holds a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University and a Certificate in Coaching for Leadership from the Tavistock Institute, London. Annie has lived in the UK, US, Singapore, and France. She currently lives in Paris with her husband and two sons.