In 1985, Austin co-wrote, with Tom Peters, A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference (Random House, hard cover; Warner Books, soft cover). An instant classic, the book rocketed to No. 1 (selling 500,000 copies in its first six months) and has been a long-standing favorite among businesspeople.

Nancy’s pioneering work in assertiveness training from the 1970s forward led to the publication in 1976 of the first edition of The Assertive Woman, co-authored with Stanlee Phelps. The book, currently in a lively and refreshed fourth edition, was the first written expressly for women about what “assertive” really means, and how assertiveness enriches personal and professional lives. It has sold half a million copies and has been published in twelve languages, among them Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, Hebrew, Polish, Spanish, and Dutch.

Austin, who holds a BA and an MBA from UCLA, was also affiliated with UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, where she was part of a team brought together to research, reimagine, and redesign the community mental health system in California. During this time, she also created and led skill-based coaching for health care practitioners, wrote frequently for professional journals, and delivered presentations that drew enthusiastic audiences.

After several years with leading consulting firms, Austin joined the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. Her mission was to identify and articulate the distinctive leadership and management practices that made the company great, and to help those skills take root in a whole new generation of company leaders around the world.

In 1983, Austin co-founded The Tom Peters Group, a consulting and research firm dedicated to deepening and applying the principles and management thinking that Peters first described in the landmark In Search of Excellence.

Austin also served—for more than a decade—as contributing editor at Working Woman magazine, a columnist for 1099 (a print and webzine for independent professionals), and as contributing editor for Incentive and Inc. magazines. She has contributed hundreds of feature articles and columns to professional journals, business and popular magazines. Austin is a frequent guest on television, radio, and in print, where she often discusses business excellence in a disruptive age, women in business, innovation, and distinctive leadership. She is Vice Chair of the Dominican Hospital (Santa Cruz) Board of Directors, and serves on the Shakespeare Santa Cruz Board.

She lives with her husband south of San Francisco on the California coast.