Bill Barnett

Bill Barnett is a business and career strategist and the author of The Strategic Career: Let Business Principles Guide You (Stanford University Press). He helps professionals, executives, and people seeking those careers discover their potential callings and develop plans to get there.

During his 23 years as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, Bill advised business clients on top strategy issues. As leader of the firm’s Strategy Practice, he pioneered new ways to develop business strategy. Another of his McKinsey roles was on the people side – coaching partners on their own strategies to grow their impact in the firm.

Later, while teaching business strategy, he found that MBA students seeking his career advice got fresh insights when they deployed the business concepts from class to themselves. Bill researched this area and developed two fundamental insights: while the specifics are different, business and career strategy are conceptually identical, and using business strategy concepts can help people plot careers. He created and taught a career strategy course for Yale and Rice and began formally counseling mid-career managers and professionals.

The Strategic Career pulls this experience together. It shows readers how to set long-term direction to a field or role that may become a calling, turn that aspiration into a long-term action plan, find opportunities to get started, determine which opportunity to accept, and stay on track over time as things change.

Bill is a Director on the Boards of Eagle Materials, Dallas homeless shelter The Bridge, and the International Center for Transitional Justice. He is an Overseer of the International Rescue Committee and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has blogged on careers for Harvard Business Review.

Earlier, Bill worked at the US Department of State and the Office of the Secretary of Defense; was a member of the US delegation to NATO/Warsaw Pact negotiations; and was a Captain in the US Army in Vietnam. He has a BS from West Point and an MBA from Harvard.

Companies

• Author and Consultant Self-employed (2010)
• Teacher Rice University (2010)
• Member of the Board of Directors Eagle Materials (2003)
• Adjunct Professor Yale School of Management (2003 — 2009)
• Senior Partner and Strategy Practice Leader McKinsey & Company (1981 — 2003)
• Foreign Service U.S. Department of State (1977 — 1981)
• Captain U S Army and Office of the Secretary of Defense (1969 — 1976)

Education

• Harvard Business School
• United States Military Academy at West Point