Leonard Schlesinger

Leonard A. Schlesinger is Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School where he serves as Chair of the School’s Practice based faculty and faculty Chair of the MBA Field Global Immersion program. He has served as a member of the HBS faculty from 1978 to 1985, 1988 to 1998 as George F. Baker Jr. Professor of Business Administration and 2013 to the present. During his career at the School he has taught courses in Organizational Behavior, Organization Design, Human Resources Management, General Management, Neighborhood Business, Entrepreneurial Management, Global Intelligence, Leadership and Service Management in MBA and Executive Education programs. He has also served as head of the HBS Service Management Interest Group, Senior Associate Dean for External Relations, and Chair of the School’s (1993-94) MBA program review and redesign process.

Throughout his career Professor Schlesinger has transitioned between academic and managerial roles in education and business settings. He served as President of Babson College from 2008-2013, held a number of key executive and operating positions (ending as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer) at Limited Brands (later L Brands) from 1999-2007, was a Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Senior Vice President and Counselor to the President at Brown University from 1998-1999, and was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Au Bon Pain from 1985-1988.

His writings on entrepreneurship, service management and organizational management have been widely published and influenced. His work on “The Service Profit Chain” has been recognized as one of the most researched management concepts of the last 30 years. He is the author or co-author of 12 additional books (many of which have been published in multiple languages), including What Great Service Leaders Know and Do: Creating Breakthroughs in Service Firms (Berrett-Koehler, 2015), Just Start: Take action, Embrace uncertainty, Create the future (Harvard Business School Press, 2012), The Value Profit Chain (Free Press, 2002), The Service Profit Chain (Free Press, 1997) and The Real Heroes of Business ... and Not a CEO among Them (Doubleday Currency, 1994), and has written numerous articles and blogs for academic audiences as well as for The New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes and Harvard Business Review. He has served on the editorial boards of five major academic journals and has published numerous management case studies that have sold well over one million copies. He has also completed three video series on service management.

Schlesinger has lectured and consulted on strategy, service quality, customer satisfaction, entrepreneurship, human resources and organizational change for over 250 major corporations, non-profit organizations, governments, and international leadership organizations around the world.

Schlesinger currently serves as a Director of RH, Inc. (Chair of Compensation Committee), and the DP Acquisition Corporation (Chair of Audit Committee). He has served on the boards of numerous for-profit and non-for-profit organizations throughout his career. He also serves as an advisory council member of Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative, and as a member of both the Council on Competitiveness and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Schlesinger holds a Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, an MBA from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts in American Civilization from Brown University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Babson College.