David Ager

David Ager is Senior Fellow within Executive Education at Harvard Business School. Professor Ager''s research focuses on the leadership and organizational challenges that firms face as they conduct post-acquisition integration.  He recently published a paper entitled "The Emotional Impact and Behavioral Consequences of Post-M&A Integration," which considers the complexities of post-merger integration and demonstrates how social identity, emotions, and coping strategies both motivate and constrain human behavior, leading to perverse unintended consequences that directly impact individual and organization-level goals of integration.

Ager has co-authored over thirty case studies that focus on a diversity of management dilemmas in the areas of leadership, organizational change, strategy, M&A, and international business.

Ager has designed and directed executive programs for several large multinational firms addressing leadership development, strategic planning, talent management, change management, M&A, team building and succession planning.  He has worked with firms around the world that operate in diverse sectors that include finance, energy, high technology, hospitality, consumer products, bio-technology, retail, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications. In addition, he has advised large, family controlled businesses around the world.

From 2004 to 2012 Ager served as a faculty member and the director of undergraduate studies in the Sociology Department at Harvard University.  One of the first faculty to introduce the case method of learning to Harvard College, Ager offered courses on leadership, organizational sociology, and field research methods.  In 2008 he introduced the first undergraduate course on Social Entrepreneurship at Harvard College with an emphasis on using entrepreneurial approaches to create for-profit, not-for-profit, and hybrid ventures to address social problems and bring about social change.

In 2004 Ager earned a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, a joint degree granted by Harvard Business School and Harvard''s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.   He also earned an Honors B.Sc. in Economics and Human Biology from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario and a Master''s degree in Sociology from Harvard University.  In 2010 Harvard University awarded Ager the Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize for excellence in teaching and dedication to undergraduate education.  In 2011 he was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Prize for excellence in teaching at Harvard University by the Alpha-Iota of Massachusetts Phi Beta Kappa chapter.  Ager serves as an advisory board member to several organizations including Lead Us Today and Crimson Consulting.