John Danner

John Danner is a Lecturer of two MBA courses in venture development at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, University of California. Danner has over 30 years of professional experience advising and managing both large, complex organizations and emerging start-up ventures.

He is the co-author of two best-selling books. The newest, Built for Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Busines, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win (June 2017) is a lead title with Harvard Business Review Press. It focuses on the intersection of the personalities of successful business founders and five key challenges they face in building enterprises of enduring value and scale. His other book, The Other ‘F” Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work (John Wiley & Sons, 2015) explains how failure can be a strategic resource to advance goals of growth, innovation and employee engagement. He is the author and subject of multiple articles and interviews in leading media.

A senior moderator of leadership seminars for the Aspen Institute, he also conducts executive education courses on innovation, strategy, leadership and organizational change around the world. Mr. Danner is a regular keynote speaker at significant conferences worldwide, including numerous TEDx and corporate leadership events. TED University, which has become a popular part of the global TED conferences, is also his brainchild.

He consults widely on strategic and policy issues for Fortune 500 companies and major government agencies to large nonprofit institutions and emerging ventures. Among his engagements are strategic analysis and advice to several major players in the restructuring global energy and utility markets (including the organization that manages California's electricity grid), global entrepreneurship education initiatives with Intel, business process innovation for significant regulated infrastructure enterprises, acquisition integration and strategy for a major food products company, and work with a broad range of new ventures in the US and abroad. As a management consultant, attorney, entrepreneur and executive, he has helped organizations develop and successfully execute strategic initiatives in rapidly changing environments - including energy, telecommunications, consumer products, high-tech, health care, education, and information industries.

In addition to his consulting and teaching activities, his professional career includes experience as an entrepreneur, corporate lawyer and senior policy advisor at both the state and federal government levels. He serves as Member of Board of Advisors at Affinity Labs, Inc. In the 1970's he served as an aide to Governor Bill Clinton and to U.S. Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler. Danner holds J.D., M.P.H. and M.A.Ed. degrees from U.C. Berkeley and received his A.B. cum laude in government and economics from Harvard College.

Education

BA, Harvard University MPH and MAEd, UC Berkeley JD, UC Berkeley

Teaching

• Entrepreneurship, MBA295A
• Entrepreneurship Workshop for Start-ups, MBA295T
• Business Model Innovation, MBA 295I