We wrote this article in 2024 for the first time, and in 2025 we made our first review of the list. In 2026 we're back with an update, adding all the people that inspired us, but also removing those who stopped being very active. We hope you'll find lots of peers you can follow to keep your LinkedIn feed inspiring.
We often get asked: “Who inspires you?” To be honest, the list is long, longer than the 39 people we decided to showcase in this article.
They are our fellows, our mentors, our facilitators, or just people we bump into on socials or live events. All of them bring us new perspectives, new ideas, new inspiration.
However, the people below consistently share their thoughts and experiences publicly. We love following them and we bet every other L&D out there will love it too.
Why did we decide to build this list?
For two reasons.
First of all, we know the internet can be a very wild place. Having a curated LinkedIn wall, and following high-quality peers can be extremely useful in our learning journeys.
Secondly, we want to celebrate these people’s work. Sharing your thoughts publicly can sometimes be scary, but they still choose to do so. We’ve learned so much from them, and we want to support them however we can.
How to read this list?
To make this list easier to follow, we chose to categorize people based on their most commonly approached topics. It doesn’t mean they only talk about that category, but rather we perceive them as thought leaders for it. Go to those topics of interest for you and focus on following those people who can bring you value.
We wrote a short description for each of them, so that you know what you’re in for, and we also shared some links where you can find them.
Give them a follow, a shootout, and learn from and with them! ✌🏻
Exploring Career Development
Helen Tupper
Helen is the co-founder of Amazing If, a space that explores non-linear, squiggly careers. She often talks about learning and career development on LinkedIn, and together with her partner in crime, Sarah Ellis, hosts an incredible podcast called Squiggly Careers.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - 3 ideas to inspire a more squiggly world of work
Exploring Leadership Development
Al Dea
Al explores lots of things, most of them geared toward the future of work, but he more often than not talks about leadership development on LinkedIn, his newsletter The Edge of Work, as well as his podcast, named the same.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - takeaways from the Culture Amp’s State of The Manager Report
JooBee Yeow
It was hard to choose a category where JooBee would fit best. She’s a wealth of knowledge when it comes to People Practices. But if you work in a start-up or scale-up and you’re looking to support your people managers, you should follow her on LinkedIn and subscribe to her newsletter.
💜 A recent post of her that we love - Manager of your team vs. management team: what's the difference?
Kenny Temowo
Kenny is currently part of Netflix’s team Leadership Culture and Talent Innovation. He writes & speaks about the intersection of Leadership, Business, and Creative Organisations. His LinkedIn posts are clear and to the point.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - The problem with 'psychological safety’
Saad Qureshi (new!)
Saad is the Founder of Managerkind. He has a deep belief that theory & content are no longer paying off in learning sessions, and he's on a journey to reinvent how workshops are run. He shares his insights, and programs recurrently.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - The majority of facilitators are introverts
Antonia (anto) Onaca (new!)
Anto is one of our mentors, and an extremely knowledgable person when it comes to leadership development and performance management. She's also joining us as a facilitator at Offbeat Fest this year!
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - Hire for Fit, Rate for Failure
Exploring Technology & AI in L&D
Egle Vinauskaite
Egle is a Learning Strategist and Director at Nodes and she’s one of the most consistent people in talking about technology in L&D. You have to follow her on LinkedIn if you want to understand both the bigger picture and tactical ways of using AI in L&D.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - What's going on with AI in L&D?
Ross Stevenson
Someone else extremely consistent in talking about AI in L&D, and L&D in general? Ross. He runs Steal These Thoughts - has a newsletter and posts daily on LinkedIn his lessons learned from various experiments.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - analysis of 20 future skills reports
Christopher Lind
We’ve been following Christopher for years. His work exploring L&D technology & tools makes him the go-to person for this topic. His full-time job is as Chief Learning Officer at ChenMed, but on the side, he runs Learning Tech Talks to demystify the landscape of learning tech through unbiased conversations with technologies from around the world, and a newsletter at the intersection of business, technology, and human experience.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - Change is a process, not an event.
Klara Hermesz (new!)
Klara has been an Offbeat Fellow for years now. We saw her jumping deep onto the AI train, and over the past years, she's become our go-to person for AI projects. She actively posts on LinkedIn about how to intentionally adopt AI in your work.
💜 A recent post of her that we love -
Lori Niles-Hofmann
Lori is an independent senior learning strategist with 25 years of L&D experience across many industries, including international banking, management consulting, and marketing. She's very transparent, authentic, and assertive in sharing her opinions about our industry, which is definitely one of the things we like most about her!
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - From Terranaut to Astronaut: The Gravitational Pull of AI
Exploring Learning Science
Scott H. Young
Scott is well-known for his crazy learning challenges. Just by exploring those, you will be extremely inspired. But you don’t need to stop there, because he posts weekly on his blog various in-depth thoughts on learning sciences and beyond.
💜 A recent blog post of his that we love - The 15 People Who Most Influenced My Thinking About Learning
Lauren Waldman
Lauren was one of us before moving to study neuroscience and becoming the go-to person when it comes to learning science. You can find her on LinkedIn spilling the truth about neuromyths and educating us about our brains.
💜 A recent interview of hers comes from us - Bridging the Gap: Integrating Neuroscience into Learning Design
Alis Anagnostakis
We’ve been following Alis for years now, ever since she was a famous coach in Romania, known for her high-quality work. Now she runs the Vertical Development Institute and explores adult development in her research, on LinkedIn, her podcast, and her newsletter.
💜 A recent podcast episode of hers that I love - Neuroscience and Vertical Development.
Exploring General Learning & Development
David James
David runs one of the most popular L&D podcasts out there, The Learning & Development Podcast. If you’re looking to hear from peers all around the world, there’s no better way than to listen to this podcast.
💜 A recent episode of his that we love - Performance-Oriented Soft Skills Development with Guy Wallace
Jess Almlie
Jess talks candidly about L&D, where traditional practices fail, and tactical tips to move toward being a more impactful L&D Pro. She often posts short forms on LinkedIn, but also writes some awesome, in-depth articles on the same platform.
💜 A recent article of hers that we love - ****The Real Reason We Measure
Heidi Kirby
Honest and consistent, Heidi often reflects on LinkedIn about the present and future of L&D. She also runs a podcast called The BLOC (Building Learning and Organizational Culture) Podcast where she invites lots of awesome peers.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - working with SMEs
Nick Shackleton-Jones
Nick is the author of How People Learn, a book that made our Top L&D Book List as well. We totally recommend it, as well as following him on LinkedIn, where he covers L&D from all sorts of angles.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - 42 Challenges.
Rita Azevedo (new!)
Rita is reimagining learning at Sana! She's been a very close friend of ours, and she recurrently explores themes like strategic L&D, AI in L&D, and technology adoptions within companies.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - 7 steps to launching a new learning tool
Exploring Learning Experience Design
Srishti Sehgal
Srishti’s passion for creative and impactful learning experience design is extremely impactful. She runs a project-focused community at LxD Lab working on lovely projects, runs an amazing newsletter, and consistently posts on LinkedIn.
💜 A recent article of hers that we love - Recipe of a Ritual
Amanda Nguyễn
We have two words for Amanda - color & creativity - her LinkedIn profile is full of both. She currently freelances as a Learning Experience Designer and in the past worked for companies such as Canva & Shopify.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - 7 illustration libraries for your next project
Megan Miao
Megan won our heart long before she spoke about serendipity in learning at Offbeat Sparks Online in December of 2024. But when she did, we became fans! She often shares her experiences as a learning designer, her tool stack, among others.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - ChatGPT for LXDs
Romy Alexandra
If we think experiential learning, we think Romy! Romy spends a lot of time carefully unpacking her design, experiential learning, and facilitation experience in LinkedIn posts, and we love it!
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - #TrainerToolTuesday
Exploring Social Learning
Anamaria Dorgo
Well, we all know her. We all love her. Anamaria is the go-to person for everything related to community building & management. Her LinkedIn profile is consistently full of nuggets of wisdom about running internal communities of practice, so you have to follow her.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - "Communities are cool, but what's the impact they have?”
Julian Stodd
No one looks as in-depth at learning more than Julian (in our network). We chose to put him under Social Learning because he explores a lot of it, but leadership development and learning science are also his areas of expertise. His LinkedIn profile is full of his thoughts, as well as his newsletter.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - Social Learning: Divergent Stories
Exploring Culture Development
Gustavo Razzetti
If you want to learn about psychological safety, building a feedback culture, and culture development in general, there’s no one better to follow than Gustavo. He’s quite active on LinkedIn, but his newsletter, Fearless Culture, is the real gem!
💜 A recent issue of his that we love - Humor at Work: The Superpower of Successful Teams
Andrew Barry
Andrew is the founder of curious lion. He explores Sales Enablement, Organizational Learning, Collaborative Learning, Change Management, and Leadership Development. He runs a blog, a newsletter, and often posts on LinkedIn his thoughts.
💜 A recent post of his that we love - 5 practical ways to accelerate learning in your team
Exploring Marketing for L&D
Ashley Sinclair
Your go to person for marketing. Oh, wait, no, marketing for L&D, a skill we all need! Ashley runs the Marketing For Learning Podcast, and often posts on LinkedIn her thoughts about how L&D Professionals can use marketing tactics to make their work more visible.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - curated list of tools, websites, podcasts to learn marketing
Exploring Coaching
Ally Jones
If you’re passionate about coaching, Ally has your back. She’s now the Co-Founder of Coachable, and often talks about the intersection of coaching, learning design, and facilitation on her LinkedIn profile.
💜 A recent post of hers that we love - 15 self-coaching questions to support your growth as a Coachable leader 🖤
.svg)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
