Ram Charan

Ram Charan, Ph.D., is a highly acclaimed business advisor, speaker, and author and has coached some of the world’s most successful CEOs. For 35 years, he has worked behind the scenes at companies like GE, DuPont, Novartis, Pharmacia, Warner Lambert, Duke Energy, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Schering-Plough, Smith-Kline, and Verizon.

Charan started his business career as a teenager working in the family shoe shop in India. He went on to earn an engineering degree and then MBA and doctorate degrees from Harvard Business School. He graduated from Harvard with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar, then served on the Harvard Business School faculty.

A favorite among executive educators, Charan won the Bell Ringer (best teacher) award at GE’s famous Crotonville Institute and the Best Teacher Award at Wharton and Northwestern. He was among Business Week’s top ten resources for in-house executive development programs.

A well-known author, Ram Charan wrote “Execution,” with Larry Bossidy, the former CEO of Honeywell. “Execution” reached number one on the Wall Street Journal list and has been on the New York Time’s best-seller list for more than fifty weeks. Charan’s other books include “What the CEO Wants You to Know,” “Boards at Work,” and “Every Business Is a Growth Business.” He also tailors his books for specific client companies such as Gateway, Ford and EDS. His new book, “Profitable Growth,” was released in January 2004. He has also written articles for the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Time, Information Week, Leader to Leader, Director’s Monthly, Directorship, The Corporate Board, and USA Today.

Ram Charan is a director of Austin Industries and The Six Sigma Academy. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He serves as a co-host for the Fortune Forum on Corporate Governance and also serves on the National Association of Corporate Directors’ Blue Ribbon Commission on Corporate Governance.

The Game Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation

How you can increase and sustain organic revenue and profit growth… whether you?re running an entire company or in your first management job.

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

Based on the book by the same title, Ram shows you how to get the job done and deliver results – whether you’re running an entire company or in your first management job.

Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis

Ram Charan shows how top companies approach leadership development as a core competency. Leadership development must be a hands-on activity, integral to the business and involving leaders at all levels.

Ram Charan [consults] for the largest and most powerful companies . . . even more than his dedication, it's his insights that have won him the ear of hundreds of top managers. . . . What Charan loves to do is to solve business problems. With his plainspoken Socratic approach, he helps demolish organizational silos or persuade entrenched executives to change their points of view. . . . Companies seek him out for his 'wise man' approach rather than choosing a consultant with a narrow specialty — Fast Company

Ram Charan is a wise counselor and keen observer on the front lines of the American board revolution — retired chairman and president of Armstrong World Industries and former director of Bell Atlantic

His valuable views and opinions come from years of consulting with some of America's best-known and most successful chairmen and CEOs, who also share their direct insights on the most controversial of topics. — chairman and CEO, Tektronix Inc., and director of AMP

Ram Charan's depth of experience and leadership in the area of business management is unrivaled — President and COO, Vivendi Universal Entertainment