John Kotter, DBA

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 the company that bears his name, Kotter, have helped mobilize people around the world to better lead organizations and their own lives in an era of increasingly rapid change.

Professor 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 receive that award at the Business School. Over the past thirty years, his articles in The Harvard Business Review have sold more reprints than any others written over the same time by hundreds of distinguished authors. His HBR article "Accelerate!" won the 2012 McKinsey Award for the world's most practical and groundbreaking thinking in the business/management arena. Today, he continues to deliver seminars in Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Programs, which are often regarded as life-changing by his students.

Kotter has authored 21 books to date – twelve of them bestsellers. His books have reached millions and are 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 made the seminal 8-Step Process for Leading Change widely accessible. Kotter uses this process, in addition to the firm’s core change principles and their newest research into the science of change in its consulting work. Written as an allegory, it is a simple, yet unforgettable story about a group of penguins on a melting iceberg and the changes they undertake to survive and thrive amidst an unclear future. This story connects with the broad range of people needed to effect major organizational transformations in an easily understood, clear way. Other widely read books include A Sense of Urgency, The Heart of Change, Leading Change (selected by Time Magazine in 2011 as one of the 25 most influential business management books ever written), and Accelerate!. Professor Kotter's latest book Change, co-written with fellow Kotter colleagues, was released in June 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Kotter’s research and pursuits in education, business, and writing over the past 35 years have earned the respect of his peers, helped transform organizations around the world, touched countless lives, and still inspire 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 Boston, MA with his wife.