Profile
Mark is Professor of Management at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment, a graduate division of The New School in New York City. He served as Milano's Chair of management programs for over twenty-two years, and launched The Tenenbaum Leadership Initiative (TLI) in 2007.
For over forty years, he has been a trusted adviser to Fortune 500 corporations, think tanks, philanthropies, not-for-profits, and start-ups.
His diverse entrepreneurial client base includes founders of transformative start-ups in technology, manufacturing, media, education, health care, finance, and marketing. His coaching skills and leadership development programs are engaged by C-level executives across all sectors of the economy. He develops corporate and non-profit boards to govern more effectively. In the nonprofit realm, he has consulted to and led leadership development initiatives for organizations ranging from multibillion-dollar philanthropic game-changers to local community-based social service providers to the world’s largest international NGOs.
Much of his New School-related work to infuse progressive leadership practices into the NGO and not-for-profit world has been made possible by significant grants from the Ford, Rockefeller, Mott, and Charles H. Revson Foundations, among others.
His work as a consultant and professor has inspired his writing for such publications as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Deloitte University Press and Journal of Management Consulting, as well as his previous book, Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies on Course (Harvard Business School Press, 2003).
His latest book, Mean Men: The perversion of America's Self Made Man was published on Labor Day, 2017.
Synopsis:
Steve Jobs, Dov Charney, Lance Armstrong, Donald Trump. Each one has reached the pinnacle of American success. Is it because they were ambitious visionaries and talented entrepreneurs? Most Americans would say yes to both. But what else do they have in common?
They’re known for being mean.
Though heralded as great leaders, each of these men and many more have also been exposed as toxic, raging, and manipulative. Yet, because America loves a winner, we look past even the most outrageous behavior from our heroes if it generates a gold medal, a windfall IPO, or a political victory. But at what price does our complicity come? And what role does gender play—are only men at this level mean?
Drawing on Mark’s extensive experience as adviser to major corporations, start-ups, government agencies, and not-for-profits, Mean Men synthesizes decades of psychological research to expose what really drives this subset of America’s leaders. As surprising as it is alarming, the book reveals dark truths about a psychological disorder that rules many of our boardrooms, and challenges the status quo with a more effective humanistic approach to leadership.
Mark holds a PhD from the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and was an Erik Erikson Visiting Scholar-in-Residence in 2009 at the Austen Riggs Center. He lives in New York City and the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.
He served for a decade, until 2014, as Chairman of the Board of Isabella Geriatric Center, one of New York State’s largest not-for-profit continuum-of-care institutions serving the elderly and disabled in New York City. Mark is also a board member of SPRAT Theatre Ensemble and serves on the Advisory Board of AchieveMission, an outgrowth of the Taproot Foundation in San Francisco. He is also an Advisory Board member of The Austin Riggs Center, in Stockbridge, MA
Recent Publications
Click here to see a video of Mark discussing the difficulty of crafting a vision.
Interview of Mark by Harvard Business School’s “Working Knowledge” publication.
Article in Ivey Business Journal on “Why Visions Fail”
Most recent book, “Guiding Growth: How vision keeps companies on course”
Research Interests
Current Projects:
1. "The Un-Disruptable CEO" Deloitte University Press, July, 2017. Two-year investigation involving interviews of Fortune 250 CEOs, enabling them to reflect on what can make a CEO "un-disrurptable." Co-authored with Benjamin Finzi
2. "Minding the Gap" - Deloitte University Press, 2016, Analysis of CFO-to-CEO leadership transition challenges and strategies to accelerate CEO readiness. Co-authored with Benjamin Finzi
3. "Fast Fluency" - Methods for rapid leadership development of young, entrepreneurial CEOs;
4. "Change Agents at the Top" - Strategies and tactics for development of senior leaders' expertise in change management
5. "Letting go, moving on" - Continuation of research on social entrepreneurs' predilication to avoid robust succession plans.
Portfolio
Personal Website
Personal Blog