Printable Biography of Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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She is the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She advises major corporations and governments worldwide, and is the author or co-author of 15 books, including her latest book, Evolve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow. Other award-winning bestsellers include Men & Women of the Corporation, The Change Masters, When Giants Learn to Dance, and World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy. In 2001 she received the Academy of Management's Distinguished Career Award (the association's highest annual award) for her contributions to management, and in 2002 the World Teleport Association's Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year Award.

Considered one of the most prominent business thought leaders in the world and well-known as a dynamic speaker, she has shared the platform at major events with Prime Ministers and Presidents as well as CEOs in many countries and she appears often on radio and television. In addition to serving on company boards, she co-founded Goodmeasure Inc., whose consulting clients have included some of the world's best companies; Goodmeasure is currently developing electronic Web-based versions of Kanter's leadership and change tools to help embed them in the daily work of organizations everywhere.

Dr. Kanter's current research is on the development of new leadership for the digital age - how to guide the transformation of large corporations, small and mid-sized businesses, health care, government and education as they incorporate new technology, create new kinds of alliances and partnerships, work across boundaries and borders and take on new social responsibilities. In 1997-98 she conceived and led the Business Leadership in the Social Sector (BLSS) project, under the auspices of the Harvard Business School's Initiative on Social Enterprise, which involved national leaders, including CEOs, Senators, Governors, and the First Lady, in dialogue about public-private partnerships for change, the launch of a BLSS video series and a national call to action in collaboration with business associations, an activity she continues as Senior Adviser to IBM's Reinventing Education program. From 1989 to 1992, she also served as Editor of the Harvard Business Review, which was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1991. She joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1986 from Yale University, where she held a tenured professorship from 1977 to 1986. She has received 21 honorary doctoral degrees and over a dozen leadership awards and has been named to lists of the "50 most influential business thinkers in the world" (ranked #11), the "100 most important women in America" and the "50 most powerful women in the world". She serves on many civic and non-profit boards, including City Year, the 14-city national service program that was the model for Americorps. Her public service activities span local and global interests. She has been a judge for the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership given at the White House, a member of the Board of Overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum, served on the Massachusetts Governor's Economic Council (for which she co-chaired the International Trade Task Force), and led the effort to establish a Year Year 2000 Commission for legacy projects for Boston. She currently serves on U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao's task force on the skills gap for the 21st Century Work Force Council.