Reginald William Revans (14 May 1907 – 8 January 2003) was an academic professor, administrator and management consultant who pioneered the use of Action learning.

A Commonwealth Scholarship in 1930 took him to study astrophysics and astronomy at the University of Michigan, and on his return to Cambridge as a fellow to Emmanuel he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory under Lord Rutherford and Sir J. J. Thomson.

There were five Nobel prizewinners in the department, but Revans found them humble enough to share their puzzlements and to listen, rather than claiming to know and be able to instruct.

He and Chester both moved to the University of Manchester where Revans became the first professor of industrial management (1955–1965) but left to develop the inter-university action learning programme in Belgium.

Working with five universities and 23 of the country's largest businesses, Revans' collaborative approaches succeeded in raising Belgium's industrial productivity growth rate above that of the US, Germany and Japan.

Revans made furniture as a hobby, played the trumpet and painted – even illustrating small books for his children.

Revans is not remembered as one of the best known gurus of management education or organisational development, not least because of his scorn for experts and his championing of ordinary people.