John P. Kotter, a world-renowned expert on leadership at the Harvard Business School, has been the premier voice on how the best organizations actually "do" change. His international bestseller Leading Change -- which outlined an actionable, 8-step process for implementing successful transformations -- became the change bible for managers around the world.

Kotter is a graduate of MIT and Harvard. He joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1972. In 1980, at the age of thirty-three, he was voted tenure and a full professorship.

Kotter is the author of The Heart of Change (2002), John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do (1999), Matsushita Leadership (1997), Leading Change (1996), The New Rules (1995), Corporate Culture and Performance (1992), A Force for Change (1990), The Leadership Factor (1988), Power and Influence (1985), The General Managers (1982), and five other books published in the 1970s. His books have been reprinted in eighty foreign language editions, and total sales are approaching two million copies. He has also created two executive videos, "Leadership" (1991) and "Corporate Culture" (1993), and an educational CD-ROM (1998) based on the Leading Change book. His articles in the Harvard Business Review have sold a million and a half copies.

Kotter's honors include an Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate Business School Curriculum Design and a Johnson, Smith and Knisely Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership. In 1996, Leading Change was named the #1 management book of the year by Management General and in 1998, Matsushita Leadership won the Financial Times/Booz·Allen and Hamilton Global Business Book Award for biography/autobiography. In October 2001, Business Week magazine rated Kotter the #1 "leadership guru" in America based on a survey they conducted of 504 enterprises.

Presentations:
Professor Kotter's goal is to mobilize an audience to action, spurring them to reexamine their practices and provide more leadership in their spheres of activity. Because this is obviously an ambitious objective, the process Professor Kotter uses is not the norm at business meetings. His method is both intellectual and emotional. It involves audience participation as well as one-way lecturing. He uses humor, videotape, prepared slides, case studies and a little theatrical flourish.

Professor Kotter presents to groups as small as ten and as large as many thousands. He rarely accepts time slots less than two hours and usually presents a two-day seminar at least once a year. Audience members are quite often senior executives in their organizations but may also be middle managers, staff, or mixed groups. Regardless of the group size or make-up, audience feedback is consistently positive and enthusiastic.