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Sally Blount
Strategy
Michael L. Nemmers Professor of Strategy
CONTACT INFO
Sally Blount is the Michael L. Nemmers Professor of Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she is also a proud alumna and former dean. An internationally recognized thought leader in management and business education, Blount is a highly rated professor and sought-after speaker on leadership development, board governance and organizational transformation.
Blount is author of two books and more than 30 peer-reviewed academic publications in negotiations and behavioral economics and a two-time recipient of National Science Foundation research grants. At year-end 2017, she was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices and Poets and Quants Dean of the Year. Blount is regularly featured in news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune and MSNBC. In 2012, she co-chaired the World Economic Forum on Latin America.
From 2010-2018, Blount served as dean at the Kellogg School of Management. Prior to that, from 2004-2010, she served as dean of the New York University’s undergraduate College of Business and vice dean of the Stern School of Business. In both deanships, Blount was a record-setting fundraiser, partnering with and leading teams that completed two capital campaigns that were transformational for their institutions, together raising more than $550M. A natural change agent, Blount worked with faculty at both schools to envision and implement substantive innovations in curriculum design, research, executive outreach, and global education, while dramatically improving the caliber of students applying to and attending both programs. She is also proud to have envisioned, funded, and completed two significant building projects, one in the heart of New York City and one on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Blount sits on the board of two Fortune 500 companies, Abbott Laboratories and Ulta Beauty, as well as the board of the Joyce Foundation. She is also a member of the Finance Council of the Archdiocese of Chicago, where she is part of the team working with the Cardinal to re-envision leadership development for priests.
Blount holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University and a B.S. in engineering from Princeton University. Blount’s first faculty appointment was at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business from 1992 to 2001. In 2001, she joined New York University’s Stern School of Business, where she became the Abraham L. Gitlow Professor of Management and chaired the promotion and tenure committee, before assuming the college deanship in 2004. Blount worked for several years between college and graduate school, first for the Boston Consulting Group and later as business manager for an architecture and design firm.
Blount is the mother of three now-adult children, Melissa, Haley and Cameron, and daily companion to two dogs, Remi and Rebel Joe.
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**This course was formerly known as MORS-942-B**
This course requires a weekly discussion section in addition to the weekly lecture. Registration for a discussion section will happen separately (after bidding and registration) but please plan accordingly using the information below
Fall 2016, 2nd 5 weeks
Plenary/Lecture: Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. plus a required one-hour weekly discussion section
Discussion Section Options
Options for FT students only:
Building on MORS-430 (Leadership in Organizations), this 5-week course moves the focus from mid-level leadership to the senior executive level of the organization. The goal is to provide insight into leading at "height and scale" - that is, what management and leadership look and feel like when you oversee 1,000 to 100,000 people and $500M to billions in revenue. How do you lead when you are only one person and you can't "do" the work of the organization yourself, you can only steer those who do?
To make this perspective as concrete as possible, we will focus on four key behavioral levers/activities that leaders have available to them to shape and have impact within large, complex organizations.
Four Key Behavioral Levers/Activities:
- Establishing a power base ("power")
- Navigating the organizational dynamics of change ("politics")
- Honing and leveraging your communications skills ("talk")
- Building your senior leadership team
The 1/2 credit course will include 5 plenary sessions (2 hours/session) and 5 small-group discussion sections (1 hour/session). Each plenary session will combine lecture and senior executive guest speakers who will build on that week's topic by sharing their own insights and experiences. Discussion groups will follow each plenary as forums for reacting and engaging in dialogue with a smaller group of classmates about lecture content, readings and speakers.