Dr. Tom Kolditz is the founding Director of the Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University–the most comprehensive, evidence-based, university-wide leader development program globally. The Doerr Institute was recognized in 2019 as the Association of Leadership Educators’ top university leader development program. Before Rice, he taught as a Professor in the Practice of Leadership and Management and Director of the Leadership Development Program at the Yale School of Management.

A retired Brigadier General, Tom led the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point for 12 years. In that role, he was responsible for West Point’s teaching, research, and outreach activities in Management, Leader Development Science, Psychology, and Sociology and was titled Professor Emeritus after retirement. A highly experienced global leader, General Kolditz has more than 35 years in leadership roles on four continents. His career has focused on either leading organizations himself or studying leadership and leadership policy across sectors.

In 2017, he was honored with the prestigious Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership—an honor also bestowed on Doris Kearns Goodwin, Howard Schultz, Tom Peters, and Benazir Bhutto. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Academy of Management.

Professor Kolditz has presented leadership content to more than 300 governmental, corporate, and social sector audiences worldwide. As a professor, he has led academic seminars or given lectures to students from Babson, Wellesley, Duke, Columbia, Yale, the University of Missouri, the Military Psychology Center of the Israel Defense Forces, Peking University, the Beijing International MBA program, Harvard Law School, & Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership.

He’s worked with the CIA, FBI, and DEA. Kolditz has appeared on Bloomberg TV, 60 Minutes Sports, ABC World News, ABC 20-20, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, Calgary Today, Morning Ireland, and interviews with reporters from the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time, Discovery, the Washington Post, and more than a dozen national and international news agencies.

Dr. Kolditz holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Vanderbilt University, three Master’s degrees, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Missouri.