William Ryan

Bill teaches in executive education program at the Kennedy School, where he focuses on governance and accountability in the nonprofit sector. His course Mobilizing Your Nonprofit Board was among the School’s first online offerings, and has attracted nonprofit leaders from over 60 countries and every segment of the nonprofit sector. He also teaches in a number of other executive education programs for nonprofit leaders, as well as in programs for leaders in higher education at the Graduate School of Education.

Previously, he was for 10 years a principal and research fellow at the Hauser Center for Civil Society, where he led or participated in projects focused on several aspects of governance and accountability, authoring articles in Harvard Business Review, Nonprofit Quarterly, and Stanford Social Innovation Review. His 2005 book Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards (John Wiley and Sons) has helped transform the way nonprofit institutions approach governance.