Event Type: Lunch
Date: Oct 28, 2009
Time: 12 noon
Location: Capitol Hill Club - 300 First Street, SE Washington DC 20003 (202) 484-4590
Metro: South Capitol Metro
Parking Available: On the street

Professor Nancy Koehn applies her keen analysis of business and history to examine the life and leadership lessons of Abraham Lincoln.   At this lunch, she presents the key findings from her soon-to-be-released book and movie documentary: Lincoln's Journey - Lessons for Leadership.   [Please arrive early so that you do not miss the brief movie clip shown at the beginning of the program].

Given the economic and social turbulence during which Lincoln governed - and those in which we now live, Professor Koehn's research is both timely and important.   Emerging and experienced leaders in the non-profit, government and business sectors - will find her message especially helpful.

http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facEmId=nkoehn%40hbs.edu   

Nancy F. Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School where she holds the James E. Robison chair of Business Administration.   Koehn's research focuses on entrepreneurial leadership and how leaders, past and present, craft lives of purpose, worth, and impact. 

Professor Koehn is completing a book and documentary on the leadership lessons from Abraham Lincoln’s life and writing another book on social entrepreneurs.  In her just-released book, The Story of American Business: From the Pages of the New York Times (Harvard Business Press, 2009), Professor Koehn examines the people, events and larger forces that have shaped business in the twenty-first century.

Koehn also wrote Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell (2001) and The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire (1994), as well as contributions to:  Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and other Economic Leaders (2008);  Remember Who You Are: Life Stories That Inspire the Heart and Mind (2004);  Beauty and Business (2000);  and The Intellectual Venture Capitalist: John H. McArthur and the Work of the Harvard Business School, 1980-1995 (1999).

Other contributions include: Creating Modern Capitalism: How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in Three Industrial Revolutions (1997); and Management Past and Present: A Casebook on American Business History (1995).  She has also written and supervised cases on Bono and U2, Oprah Winfrey, Whole Foods, Starbucks Coffee Company, Ernest Shackleton, Wedgwood, Estée Lauder, Henry Heinz, Milton Hershey, Celeste Walker, Marshall Field, Dell Computer, and other leaders and organizations.

At the Harvard Business School, Professor Koehn teaches the MBA elective Entrepreneurial Leadership in Turbulent Times.  For many years she taught The Coming of Managerial Capitalism, one of the School's most popular courses.

Koehn consults with many companies and speaks frequently before business leaders on a range of issues including leading in turbulent times, the power of strong brands, and visionary entrepreneurs. In 2001, Business 2.0 named Koehn one of 19 leading business gurus in the United States.  She has appeared on "Good Morning America," CNBC's "Moneywheel," "Nightly Business Report," and "Street Signs," "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," A&E's "Biography," CNN's "Money Line" and many other television programs.  She is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio.