ABOUT JAY

Jay Conger holds the Henry R. Kravis Chaired Professor of Leadership Studies at Claremont McKenna College. As an executive educator, coach, and program designer, he has worked with over five hundred organizations in his twenty-five year career. An outstanding teacher, the Financial Times and other business periodicals ranked him as one of the world’s top management educators. He works with individuals and organizations to create unique learning environments that accelerate and celebrate the potential of leaders.

Jay grew up in Washington DC where dinner time conversations were all about leadership. His father’s work at the US State Department involved extensive contact with world leaders. He shared stories about these individuals as well as observations about what made certain ones more effective than others. These revelations inspired Jay to want to lead. From his own leadership experiences, he learned first hand the requirements and challenges of leading. At a certain point, Jay decided that teaching leadership was his passion. While pursuing his doctorate at the Harvard Business School, Jay explored the extensive research on leadership and learned how to translate it’s insights into practical lessons and action steps.

Over the years of leading and studying leadership, he discovered a set of remarkable patterns that characterize how truly effective leaders learn, act, and communicate. He explored the pathways to developing these capabilities and came to realize that a wider variety of approaches - or learning interventions - were necessary.  Through his work with thousands of leaders and hundreds of organizations, he learned the importance of customization and honed his skills at it. Today, he designs learning experiences that not only build deep self-awareness and inspire action but also incorporate the cultural and strategic demands of organizations. What sets Jay apart from his peers is this sophisticated level of customization that he brings to client projects.

Author of fifteen books and over a hundred articles and book chapters, his research looks at  the training and development of leaders, influence, executive leadership, boards of directors, organizational change, and empowerment. He has published multiple articles in the Harvard Business Review on topics ranging from persuasion to leadership development to talent management to boardroom governance. His books include The High Potentials Advantage (2018), Boardroom Realities (2009), The Practice of Leadership (2007), Growing Your Company’s Leaders (2003), Shared Leadership (2002), Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top (2001), The Leader’s Change Handbook (1999), Building Leaders (1999), and Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion (1998).

The Center for Creative Leadership recognized his research on leadership with their prestigious H. Smith Richardson Fellowship. His insights have been featured in Business Week, The Economist, The Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, The LA Times, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Training, The Wall Street Journal, and Working Woman.

Jay received a B.A. from Dartmouth College, an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia, and a D.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. Over his career, he has served on the management faculties of the Harvard Business School, INSEAD (France), the London Business School, McGill University, and the University of Southern California. Earlier in his career, he led international marketing for a successful high technology startup.