Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration
Biography
Rosabeth Moss Kanter holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard
Business School, where she specializes in strategy, innovation, and leadership
for change. Her strategic and practical insights have guided leaders of large
and small organizations worldwide for over 25 years, through teaching, writing,
and direct consultation to major corporations and governments. The former Editor
of Harvard Business Review (1989-1992), Professor Kanter has been named
to lists of the "50 most powerful women in the world" (Times of
London), and the "50 most influential business thinkers in the world"
(Accenture and Thinkers 50 research). In 2001, she received the Academy of
Management's Distinguished Career Award for her scholarly contributions to
management knowledge, and in 2002 was named "Intelligent Community Visionary of
the Year" by the World Teleport Association.
She is the author or co-author of 18 books, including SuperCorp: How
Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good
which was released in August 2009. SuperCorp is based on three years
of research and elaborates on her recent Harvard Business Review
articles, "Transforming Giants" and "Innovation: The Classic Traps."
Her recent book, Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks
Begin & End (a New York Times business and #1 Business
Week bestseller), describes the culture and dynamics of high-performance
organizations as compared with those in decline, and shows how to lead
turnarounds, whether in businesses, hospitals, schools, sports teams, community
organizations, or countries.
Her classic prizewinning book, Men & Women of the Corporation
(which won the C. Wright Mills award winner for the year's best book on social
issues) offered insight to countless individuals and organizations about
corporate careers and the individual and organizational factors that promote
success; a spin-off video, A Tale of ‘O': On Being Different, is among
the world's most widely-used diversity tools; and a related book, Work &
Family in the United States, set a policy agenda (in 2001, a coalition of
university centers created the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award in
her honor for the best research on work/family issues). Another award-winning
book, When Giants Learn to Dance, showed how to master the new terms of
competition at the dawn of the global information age. World Class: Thriving
Locally in the Global Economy identified the rise of new business networks
and analyzed dilemmas of globalization. America the Principled: 6
Opportunities for Becoming a Can-Do Nation Once Again provided a new
direction for the United States on the cusp of the Presidential election.
She has received 23 honorary doctoral degrees, as well as numerous leadership
awards and prizes for her books and articles; for example, her book The
Change Masters was named one of the most influential business books of the
20th century (Financial Times). Through Goodmeasure Inc.,
the consulting group she co-founded, she has partnered with IBM on applying her
leadership tools from business to other sectors; she is a Senior Advisor for
IBM's Global Citizenship portfolio. She advises CEOs of large and small
companies, has served on numerous business and non-profit boards and national or
regional commissions including the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, and
speaks widely, often sharing the platform with Presidents, Prime Ministers, and
CEOs at national and international events, such as the World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland. Before joining the Harvard Business School faculty, she
held tenured professorships at Yale University and Brandeis University and was a
Fellow at Harvard Law School, simultaneously holding a Guggenheim
Fellowship.
She chairs a Harvard University group creating an innovative initiative on
advanced leadership, to help successful leaders at the top of their professions
apply their skills to addressing challenging national and global
problems.
About the HBS Virtual Learning Series (VLS)
Each month (summer months excluded), HBS offers a one-hour audio-only conference call to HBS alumni who are paid members of all registered alumni clubs throughout the world. This unique series of events produced by HBS will feature business topics of exceptional importance and significant current interest to HBS alumni, with a selected HBS professor making a brief presentation. A Q&A session, with questions submitted to the moderator in real time (via email), will follow.
We supply the conference call number and professor, and you listen in! All you have to do is put your phone on "mute" and listen to the most up-to-date comments and insights regarding the topic at hand. Questions can be submitted via e-mail, either before-hand or in real time during the call. VLS events are exclusively available to paid members of the HBS Clubs only.
