James O’Toole

James O’Toole Speaker Biography

Named one of the “100 most influential people in business ethics” by the editors of Ethisphere, and one of “the top 100 thought leaders on leadership” by Leadership Excellence magazine, James O’Toole is the Daniels Distinguished Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business.  Previously, at the University of Southern California’s business school he held the University Associates’ Chair of Management, served as Executive Director of the Leadership Institute, and editor of New Management magazine. 

O’Toole’s research and writings have been in the areas of leadership, philosophy, ethics, and corporate culture.  He has addressed dozens of major corporations and professional groups, and has over one hundred published articles. Among his sixteen books, Vanguard Management was named "One of the best business and economics books of 1985" by the editors of Business Week.  His latest books are Creating the Good Life: Applying Aristotle’s Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness (2005), The New American Workplace (with Edward Lawler, 2006), and Transparency (with Warren Bennis and Daniel Goleman, 2008).   

O’Toole received his Doctorate in Social Anthropology from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.  He served as a Special Assistant to Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Elliot Richardson, as Chairman of the Secretary’s Task Force on Work in America, and as Director of Field Investigations for President Nixon’s Commission on Campus Unrest.  He won a Mitchell Prize for a paper on economic growth policy, has served on the Board of Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and was editor of The American Oxonian magazine.  From 1994-97 O’Toole was Executive Vice President of the Aspen Institute, and later, Mortimer J. Adler Senior Fellow at the Institute.  He also has served as Chair of the Booz/Allen/Hamilton Strategic Leadership Center.