After Wolfgang made the decision to join Xerox, the family moved to the Rochester, New York area.

In 1993, she completed her Ph.D. at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) with the dissertation, entitled Developing New Competence in Established Organizations consistent with her longstanding interest in corporate ventures and innovation.

[6] McGrath started her career working in government and the political arena and founded two entrepreneurial startups.

[14] McGrath received the prestigious C. K. Prahalad award for scholarly impact on practice from the Strategic Management Society in 2022.

[15] McGrath is the bestselling author of five books and is one of the most widely published authors in the Harvard Business Review, including “Discovery Driven Planning” (1995), which was recognized as an early articulation of today’s “lean” startup philosophy and has been cited by Clayton Christensen as “one of the most important ideas in management—ever.”[16] She is the founder of the consulting firm Valize and maintains the weekly newsletter Thought Sparks on LinkedIn.