Regarded by many as the authority on leadership and change, John P. Kotter is a New York Times best-selling author, award winning business and management thought leader, business entrepreneur, inspirational speaker and Harvard Professor. His ideas, books, speeches, and company, Kotter International, have helped mobilize people around the world to better lead organizations, and their own lives, in an era of increasingly rapid change.
Dr. Kotter’s MIT and Harvard education laid the foundation for his life-long passion for educating, motivating, and helping people. He became a member of the Harvard Business School faculty in 1972. By 1980, at the age of 33, Kotter was given tenure and a full Professorship – at the time, the youngest person ever to have received that award at the Business School. Over the past 40 years, his articles in The Harvard Business Review have been some of the most popular reprints for the publication. His HBR article "Accelerate!" won the 2012 McKinsey Award for the world's most practical and groundbreaking thinking in the business/management arena.
Kotter has authored 20 books to date - twelve of them bestsellers. His books have reached millions and have been printed in over 150 foreign language editions. Arguably his most popular book, Our Iceberg Is Melting, was released in 2006. This New York Times bestseller helped launch to a large audience the 8-step process for leading change. In 2014, Kotter published his book Accelerate, an evolution of his previous research on leading change. Accelerate highlights the iterative nature of the 8-step process, the importance of aligning people around a Big Opportunity, and how to create an organization that is both efficient and reliable, and fast and agile enough to respond to today’s challenges. Dr. Kotter is the Founder, Chairman and Head of Research at Kotter International, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations apply the concepts in his books in a practical and accessible way – helping them achieve unimaginable results, faster than they believe possible. Other widely read books include A Sense of Urgency, The Heart of Change and Leading Change, which Time magazine selected in 2011 as one of the 25 most influential business management books ever written.
Kotter's 21st book, Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results Despite Uncertain and Volatile Times brings together more than 40 years of research and more than a decade of Kotter International’s practical application of this research with organizations around the globe. Change sheds new light on how to build organizations – from businesses to governments – that are able to change and adapt rapidly.
Kotter’s research and pursuits in education, business and writing have earned the respect of his peers, helped transform organizations around the world, touched countless lives, and still inspires others to adopt his methods and spread the word. He continues to work tirelessly to achieve the goal of “millions leading, billions benefiting.”
Professor Kotter is a proud father of two and resides in Sarasota, FL with his wife, Nancy Dearman.
