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Dr. Chris Kayes (PhD, Case Western Reserve University) is Professor of Management at The George Washington University School of Business and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Excellence in Public Leadership at The George Washington University. He serves as a Faculty Fellow at The Institute for Experiential Learning and at The Learning and Innovation Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is the author or coauthor and editor of 5 books: Judgment and Leadership: A multidisciplinary approach to concepts, practice and development (Edward Elgar), Contemporary Organizational Behavior (Pearson), Organizational Resilience: How Learning Sustains Organizations Through Crisis, Disaster, and Breakdown (Oxford), The Learning Advantage: Six Practices of Learning-Directed Leadership (Macmillan), and Destructive Goal Pursuit: The Mt. Everest Disaster (Macmillan).

He served for four terms as Chair of the Management Department, as Founding Director of the Master in Human Resource Management Program, and as Interim Dean of the School of Business. As interim Dean, he led the School’s financial turnaround, reintroduced the doctoral program, and strengthened ties with the school, alumni, and business community. As Department Chair, he increased the diversity of the faculty. He led the department into national prominence, ranking among the top 50 Management departments in the US (including the top 20 among private institutions). He oversaw the introduction of new Masters programs in Human Resource Management (which contributed to a top international ranking in non-MBA programs), Sport Management, a new University-wide interdisciplinary Undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship, and several certificates.

Dr. Kayes’ research on experiential learning, leadership, and resilience has appeared in over 50 peer-reviewed publications. His paper, ‘The destructive pursuit of idealized goals,’ received the first most significant contribution to the practice of management award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. His analysis of the 1996 Mt. Everest climbing disaster won the Best Paperaward from the journal Human Relations, and his extension of experiential learning theory was nominated for the first Best Paper award in the Academy of Management Learning and Educationjournal. He has appeared in over 100 media news stories, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Washington Post, Financial Times, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, NPR, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, and Reuters. Oliver Burkeman’s book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking featured his unique approach to goals and goal setting.

Professor Kayes was selected by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs to film a video series as part of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative. He received two Outstanding Teaching Awards from George Washington University School of Business and has taught at universities around the world, including the Singapore Institute of Management; the Zagreb School of Economics and Management in Croatia; the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland; the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Latvia; the University of Hull in the United Kingdom; and Holy Spirit University in Beirut, Lebanon.

Dr. Kayes has consulted with a variety of organizations around the world, including World Bank, US State Dept., Linux Foundation, Capital One, the Canadian Olympic Committee, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Northrop Grumman, American Research Institute, WMS Gaming, Human Capital Singapore, Eye Bank of America, American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA), National Institutes of Health, Fannie Mae, Oracle, Ericsson, Bank of New York Mellon, Sun King, Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation, Singapore Workforce Development Agency, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Judiciary, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy. He has presented at over a dozen Universities around the world.