Bob believes every human being can benefit from being in forum, a group of peers whose only agenda is to help all members confront their toughest challenges and achieve their highest aspirations.  His approach to Forum facilitation combines meticulous planning, a willingness to improvise to meet emerging needs, and a deep understanding of the business and executive mindset.

 

Bob first saw the power of Forum when he served as Chief Education Officer of Young Presidents Organization.  At YPO, he was trained as a Forum moderator, and helped organize Taste of Forum programs. Bob also brought Forum elements into other YPO educational programming.  Bob is a YPO Certified Forum Facilitator including Transformational Forum. He has worked with all YPO populations including members, spouses, couples, and NextGeners (children of YPOers, age 18-30).

 

Based on his experience at YPO, Bob co-founded Alumni Forum Services to offer the benefit of Forum to Harvard Business School alumni and other executive groups.   Over the last five years, AFS has launched over 50 HBS Alumni Forums across North America, and Bob has personally facilitated scores of Forum training sessions and retreats.  He loves sharing best practices and helping to advance the state of the art in Forum through his blog.  Bob has been a featured expert on the Harvard Business Review Management Channel on “The Power of Peer Support Groups."

 

Bob has helped the following organizations launch forum/circle peer support programs: McKinsey, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, IESE Business School (Barcelona), Techstars, and Cambridge Innovation Center.  Bob has also facilitated leadership development programs with Harvard Business Publishing, MIT Sloan School’s Innovation Period, Wharton Executive Education, Dartmouth Tuck Executive Education, Northeastern University’s Graduate Program in Leadership, and the Irish Management Institute, and has presented on leadership development and organizational change topics to executive and academic audiences in the Americas, Europe and Asia.  He is a Research Affiliate (and former Executive Director) at MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, and Chairman of the Academic Board of the Emeritus Institute of Management, a collaboration between MIT Sloan, Columbia Business School, and Dartmouth Tuck Business School.

 

Bob brings to his facilitation work over two decades of executive education, consulting, and senior management experience including leadership roles at Harvard Business School (Managing Director, Custom Executive Education), Babson College (Associate Dean), and MIT Sloan School of Management (Executive Director of Executive Education).  

 

Bob received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BA in economics from Brandeis University.  At HBS, he was cofounder of the Nonprofit Management Summer Fellows, and founding chair of the Fellowships Alumni Advisory Board.  In 2002 Bob was chosen as an Eisenhower Fellow, and participated with a small group of other mid-career American leaders in an intensive program of international idea exchange.  Bob’s fellowship topics – best practices in executive development, the role of technology in management education, and enhanced models for industry-university cooperation – remain central interests for him today.