Jeffrey 'Jerry'; Sonnenfeld is Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs and Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management at Yale School of Management where he has taught since 1999. Before joining Yale, he taught for ten years at as a professor at the Harvard Business School and nine years as a professor at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.
Sonnenfeld is the founder of Chief Executive Leadership Institute, the world's first 'CEO College' which was created in 1989 when he migrated to Emory University a program he pioneered as a prototype at the Harvard Business School in 1987 and 1988. In 2000, this institute moved to Yale University where it presently resides. Regular participants in this program include such opinion leaders as Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase; James McNerney, CEO of Boeing; Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon; Stephen Schwarzman CEO of the Blackstone Group; financier Wilbur Ross; Jeffrey Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner; Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox; Jim Kelly, former CEO of UPS; Reuben Mark, former CEO of Colgate-Palmolive; Group, Richard Teerlink, former CEO of Harley-Davidson; Katharine Graham, the former CEO of The Washington Post Company; Ed Rust, CEO of State Farm; Louis Gerstner FORMER CEO of IBM; Brad Anderson of Best Buy; legendary founders as: Bernard Marcus of The Home Depot; David Neeleman of Jet Blue; Marvin Bower of McKinsey & Co; Bruce Henderson of The Boston Consulting Group; Kemmons Wilson of Holiday Inns; William McGowan of MCI; William Rosenberg of Dunkin Donuts; Sumner Redstone of Viacom; Donald Trump; Martha Steward of Martha Stewart Omnimedia; and Michael Dell of Dell Computer. Other notable historic figures who have attended include: Albert H. Gordon of Kidder Peabody, fomer SEC Chairman William Donaldson; IBM's Thomas Watson Jr., Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association,along with three former US presidents and many US cabinet officials and legislators.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld served as full professor at Emory's Goizueta Business School and Harvard Business School, and is now founder and president of The Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, a non-profit educational and research institute focused on CEO leadership and corporate governance. Professor Sonnenfeld's related research has been published in roughly 100 scholarly articles which appeared in the leading academic journals in management such as: Administrative Sciences Quarterly, The Academy of Management Journal, The Academy of Management Review, The Journal of Organizational Behavior, Social Forces, Human Relations, and Human Resource Management. He has served on the board of editors of seven top scholarly journals and is the founding President of the Careers Division of the Academy of Management. He twice received awards from the Academy of Management for Outstanding Research on Social Issues, the Outstanding Educator Award from Emory University; and the Award for Outstanding Contributions to Executive Education by the American Association for Training and Development. Sonnenfeld was the youngest serving member of the Board Governors of the Academy of Management — the scholarly society of management researchers, and the youngest member of the board of directors of the National Association of Retired Persons. He has also served on several public company boards of directors. Among his seven books are two award winning classics: The Hero's Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire (1989) and Firing Back: How Great Leaders Overcome Adversity (2007) with Emory Alumnus Andrew Ward.
Sonnenfeld gained some notoriety when, in late 1997, after being passed over as dean of the Goizeuta Business School, he accepted the same position at nearby Georgia Tech. Shortly before leaving Emory, he was threatened with arrest for vandalizing the Goizeuta building; William Chace, Emory's president, notified Georgia Tech, which withdrew its offer. Videotape showing Sonnenfeld walking down a hall inside the Goizeuta building and kicking a wall was shown on CBS-TV's '60 Minutes.' In 2000, Sonnenfeld and Emory settled out of court. Under oath, President Chace testified that the videotape was inconclusive regarding whether or not it showed Sonnenfeld actively vandalizing school property.
His is regularly cited by the general media such as: Fortune, Business Week, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Fiancial Times; The Economist; Bloomberg; Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post, CBS (60 Minutes), NBC (The Today Show), ABC (Nightline,Good Morning America), CNN , and CNBC. He presently serves as a staff commentator for CNBC. Professor Sonnenfeld is currently the senior associate dean of executive programs as well as the Lester Crown Professor-in-the-Practice of Management for the Yale School of Management. He has been invited by the New York Stock Exchange to ring the 'Opening Bell,' and has twice been invited by the NASDAQ OMX stock market to ring the 'Opening Bell' to start the trading day of the world's largest exchanges.
Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters