John P. Kotter is internationally known and widely regarded as the foremost expert on the topics of Leadership and Transformation. He is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and a graduate of MIT and Harvard. His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually achieve successful transformations. Kotter co-founded Kotter International, a firm dedicated to helping complex organizations accelerate the achievement of their strategic initiatives in a rapidly changing environment.
When working with groups, Kotter draws on the history of recent successes and failures in the business world. Kotter offers the leadership tools necessary to achieve success in a business world that reinvents itself every day. When John Kotter works with groups, he has one and only one goal: to motivate action that gets better results.
Kotter has authored 17 books, twelve of them bestsellers. His works have been printed in over 120 languages and total sales exceed two million copies. His latest book, Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down (October 2010), focuses on engaging others to implement your ideas. His book, A Sense of Urgency, focuses on what a true sense of urgency in an organization really is, why it is becoming an important asset and how it can be created and sustained. John Kotter’s international bestseller Leading Change—which outlines an actionable eight-step process for implementing successful transformations—has become the bible for leaders around the world who want to achieve great results. Our Iceberg Is Melting, the New York Times bestseller, puts the eight-step process within an allegory, making it accessible to the broad range of people needed to effect major organizational transformations. His books are in the top 1% of sales on Amazon.com.
Kotter’s articles in The Harvard Business Review over the past twenty years have sold more reprints than any of the hundreds of distinguished authors who have written for that publication during that time period. Kotter has been on the Harvard Business School faculty since 1972. In 1980, at the age of 33, he was given tenure and a full professorship, making him one of the youngest people in the history of the University to be so honored. He continues to deliver seminars at Harvard Business School Executive Education Programs.
The many honors won by Professor Kotter include an Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate Business School Curriculum Design, a Johnson, Smith & Knisley Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership, and a McKinsey Award for Best Harvard Business Review Article. Professor Kotter's Leading Change was named the #1 Management Book of the Year by Management General. In 2007, his video "Succeeding in a Changing World" was named best video training product of the year by Training Media Review and also won a Telly Award. In 2009, Dr. Kotter was presented the Lifetime Achievement in Workplace Learning and Performance Award by the American Society for Training and Development.