Robert Galford

Rob Galford is a managing partner of the Center for Leading Organizations. He divides his time across teaching in Executive Education programs and working with senior executives at the world’s leading private, public and governmental entities on the issues that lie at the intersection of strategy, organization and leadership. He has taught on these disciplines on the Executive Programs at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and most recently Harvard University. Mr. Galford was formerly a managing partner with the Center for Executive Development. Earlier in his career, Mr. Galford was Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of Digitas (NASDAQ:DTAS), a marketing services firm based in Boston, with offices across the U.S. and Europe that is now part of Publicis Groupe. He was also a Vice President of The MAC Group and its successor firm, Gemini Consulting, focusing on the strategic and organizational challenges facing professional and services organizations. While there, he worked for a number of years in Western Europe prior to returning to the U.S., where he took on a variety of firm administrative and managerial responsibilities. Mr. Galford has practiced law with the international firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle in New York, and has also worked in both equity and real estate investment management, first for Citicorp in New York, and later in Boston. In addition, he has taught Management Policy in the MBA Program at Boston University Graduate School of Management.

Mr. Galford is a five-time contributor to the Harvard Business Review, including "When an Executive Defects" (case comment-1997), "Why Can't this HR Department Get Any Respect?" (1998), "What's He Waiting For?" (1999), "The Enemies of Trust" (2003), and “Succession and Failure” (2004). His work also has appeared frequently in the Boston Globe, where he has served as one of the regular "Job Doc" advice columnists in the Sunday Globe, and he has been featured or quoted in such other publications as Inc. Magazine, Sloan Management Review, and The American Lawyer.

Mr. Galford is the co-author of The Trusted Advisor (with David Maister and Charles Green), initially published by Free Press/Simon and Schuster in 2000, and subsequently reissued in paperback by Touchstone/Simon and Schuster in 2001. The Trusted Advisor has been on business best-seller lists since the time of its publication. His second book, The Trusted Leader(co-authored with Anne Drapeau), was published by The Free Press in January 2003. His third book, Your Leadership Legacy, co-authored with Regina Maruca, was published by Harvard Business School Press (September 2006). Mr. Galford currently sits on the board of directors of Forrester Research, Inc., where he chairs the Compensation and Governance Committee. In addition, he serves as an outside board advisor to the noted architectural firm, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott. Mr. Galford is the Leadership Fellow to the Advanced Management Development Program (AMDP) in Real Estate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He also hosts the business video, Talk About Change! with the popular cartoon character, Dilbert.

Mr. Galford's educational background includes Liceo Segre, Turin, Italy, a BA in Economics and Italian Literature from Haverford College, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an Associate Editor of The Tax Lawyer.