Bill George Information

Bill George is a respected Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has enjoyed teaching leadership in his practice management classes since 2004. He is the author of six bestselling books: Authentic Leadership, True North, Finding Your True North, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis, True North Groups, and Discover Your True North. Bill is also the former CEO of Medtronic, a medical device manufacturer and leader in the fight for better global healthcare. During his tenure there, Bill practiced what he preaches; when he became CEO in 1991, he pledged to fill the role for only ten years, following his belief that diversification of a company’s leadership is the best way to ensure its future success. As he’d promised, Bill resigned as board chair of Medtronic in 2002. Earlier in his career, Bill was a senior executive with Honeywell and Litton Industries and served in the U.S. Department of Defense. He has served on the boards of Novartis and Target Corporation, and now serves as director of ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, and the Mayo Clinic. He is also a trustee of the World Economic Forum USA and Guthrie Theater and a former Trustee of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Bill makes frequent appearances on television and radio, and his articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, and many other publications. He has also garnered many public accolades in his career, including being named one of the “Top 25 Business Leaders of the Past 25 Years” by PBS; “Executive of the Year-2001” by the Academy of Management; “Director of the Year-2001-02” by the National Association of Corporate Directors; and the 2014 Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute.