Alexandra Dobra-Kiel

Biography

Dr Alexandra Dobra-Kiel is a behavioural scientist and business innovator who examines why promising ideas succeed or fail inside organisations. With a career covering senior roles in consultancy and advertising, Alexandra works at the intersection of corporate strategy and behavioural science. She helps leaders close the gap between ambitious goal and real impact so that AI and innovation strategies deliver tangible, lasting returns. She makes complex ideas clear and counterintuitive arguments credible, revealing the human dynamics and assumptions that shape strategic challenges rather than accepting their conventional framing.

Alexandra is the Innovation Research Principal Director at Accenture's global R&D centre, The Dock, where she develops intellectual property and translates it into advisory solutions. Previously, she served as Innovation and Strategy Director at Serviceplan Group, the global media and communications agency, where she advised the UK CEO on AI and innovation strategy and developed proprietary consulting solutions. She has also worked for Deloitte and Kroll.

Challenging conventional wisdom about how innovation and technology are implemented in organisations, Alexandra demonstrates why AI implementation does not equal adoption when motivation, proficiency and ethics have been overlooked. Rather than treating responsible AI as a compliance problem solved through static rules, she argues that ethics demands active stewardship from developers and users alike. Her research reveals how AI narrows strategic choice and erodes organisational sovereignty. She also challenges the assumption that psychological safety always serves innovation, showing how organisations can mistake safety for certainty and inadvertently inhibit the very change they seek.

Alexandra combines rigorous, up-to-the-minute research with practical experience working with senior executives. Human, practical and sharp, she applies a three-question framework to guide leaders: What is actually happening? Where does conventional thinking go wrong? What is a more useful way forward? She separates symptoms from root causes, identifies where leader can usefully intervene, and navigate the strategic uncertainty surrounding AI adoption, innovation and organisational transformation.

Alexandra holds a PhD from Warwick University and an MPhil from Cambridge. Her work has been published by the World Economic Forum and the European Business Review, she has been quoted in the Financial Times and The Times, and she contributes to the Advertising Association's AI Taskforce, helping to inform UK government policy. She has spoken at London Tech Week, Salesforce World Tour and FutureWeek Forum.