Ram Charan

Ram Charan is a highly acclaimed business advisor, speaker and author. Ram has coached some of the world's most successful CEOs. For 35 years, he has worked behind the scenes at companies like GE, KLM, Bank of America, DuPont, Novartis, EMC, 3M and Verizon.

Ram started his business career as a teenager working in the family shoe shop in India. He went on to earn an engineering degree and then MBA and doctorate degrees from Harvard Business School. He graduated from Harvard with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar. He then served on the Harvard Business School faculty. Ram cuts through the difficult problems and gets you to the right insights: he makes difficult problems simple with great insights.

Ram is known for his practical, real world perspective. His expertise runs deep in several areas of business:

- Organic Growth                   
- Succession & Leadership Pipeline
- Leadership                       
- Tools for Changing a Business Culture
- Corporate Governance               
- Building Top Management Teams
- Execution: Discipline of Getting Things Done       
- Business Acumen
- Culture of Innovation                   
- Managing in the Downturn
                           
Ram is a favorite among executive educators. He has taught for 30 consecutive years at GE's famous Crotonville Institute and is the recipient of their Bell Ringer award (best teacher). He won the Best Teacher Award at Wharton and Northwestern. He was among Business Week's top ten resources for in-house executive development programs.

Ram is a well-known author, whose books include Execution, co-authored with Larry Bossidy, the former CEO of Honeywell. Execution reached number one on the Wall Street Journal list, and has been on the New York Time's best-seller list for more than one hundred and fifty weeks. Ram's other books include Boards That Deliver, What the CEO Wants You to Know, Boards at Work, Every Business Is a Growth Business, Profitable Growth, Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don’t, Leaders at All Levels, What the Customer Wants You to Know, The Game Changer (co-authored with A.G. Lafley, Chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble), Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules of Getting Things Done in Difficult Times and Owning Up: Answering the 14 Questions Asked in Every Boardroom. His most current book, The Talent Master: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers, was  published October, 2010. He also tailors his books for specific client companies such as Gateway, Ford and EDS. 

He's written articles for Business Week, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Time, Information Week, Leader to Leader, Director's Monthly, Directorship, The Corporate Board and USA Today.

Ram is a director of Austin Industries, Tyco Electronics and Emaar MGF. He was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005. He serves as a co-host for the Fortune Forum on Corporate Governance and also serves on the National Association of Corporate Directors' Blue Ribbon Commission on Corporate Governance.

• 4. Corporate Governance

  Sarbanes-Oxley and the NYSE guidelines can go only so far. Boards must go beyond compliance to ensure that they are focusing on the substance of corporate governance: providing oversight and adding value. Designed for those involved in corporate governance, this session is practical and down to earth. Based on Boards at Work (1997) and The New Board (forthcoming) and informed by work with some of the country's best boards, it shows how any board can be among the best.
  
  This session...
  
  - Pinpoints new and existing mechanisms that are crucial to good governance
  - Tells how best to implement those mechanisms   
  - Explains how to leverage the board's collective judgment and collective power
  - Gives specific advice on perplexing board problems, such as how to use executive sessions, how to keep the dialogue on track, and why board retreats often fail.

• 3. Growth

  Especially in a slow economy, growth can seem impossible to achieve. But growth opportunities almost always exist. What is needed is a disciplined approach to identify, pursue, and fund them. 
  
  Based on the Charan's two books on growth, Growth Is Everybody's Business (1998) and Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business: 9 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning (January 2004), this session shows...
  
  - Why companies often look for growth in the wrong places
  - How to assess the risks associated with growth
  - Principles for identifying and pursuing growth
  - How to fund growth

• 2. Execution

  For many leaders, creating a strategy is the easy part; making it happen is the challenge. Why is flawless execution so hard to achieve? Because few leaders understand what it requires. Execution takes personal discipline, and more important, a systematic approach to synchronizing the moving parts of the organization. 
  
  Based on the best-selling and highly praised book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, this session explains...
  
  - Why execution cannot be delegated
  - How companies like Wal-Mart, Dell, and GE use execution to out-compete
  - The framework of flawless execution
  - Tools to develop your own discipline of execution

• 1. Business Acumen

  Some people have a nose for business. More often than not, their instincts take them in the right direction, and the company makes money. These people have business acumen. What exactly is business acumen? Is it a raw talent or something that can be cultivated and improved? How does the business acumen of a Jack Welch differ from that of a street vendor in India?
  
  Based on the book What the CEO Wants You to Know: How Your Company Really Works and ongoing research, this session...
  
  - Defines business acumen
  - Explains why it is becoming a key criterion for those who evaluate and hire business
  - Leaders (Warren Buffet used it to recruit board members)
  - Shows how it differs from other leadership traits
  - Teaches how to develop it in yourself and others

• 
  April 2009

  Owning Up

  In Owning Up, Ram Charan describes the best practices emerging in boardrooms that he has observed firsthand. He provides practical recommendations on a range of issues, from compensation to dealing with external constituencies. Wisely attuned to the human side, he confronts the need for some boards to refresh their composition and for others to rebalance their board dynamics. Directors, CEOs, general counsels, and operating executives will find here the guidance they need to meet the new and rising standards for corporate governance in this demanding business environment.

  
  
• 
  December 2008

  Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty

  In Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, Ram Charan helps you steer your business through the minefield of contracting markets, cash shortages, and ongoing uncertainty. No matter what your leadership role, Charan's insight will help ensure that your business emerges leaner, stronger, and well in front of the competition. With examples and case studies, Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty illustrates how leaders at DuPont, Hanesbrands, Wipro, and other companies used Charan's techniques to get results.

  
  
• 
  April 2008

  The Game-changer: How You Can Drive Revenue And Profit Growth With Innovation

  We live in a world of unprecedented change, increasing global competitiveness, and the very real threat of commoditization. Innovation in this world is the best way to win—arguably the only way to really win. Innovation is not a separate, discrete activity but the job of everyone in a leadership position and the integral, central driving force for any business that wants to grow organically and succeed on a sustained basis. This is a game-changing book that helps you redefine your leadership and improve your management game.

  
  
• 
  December 2007

  What The Customer Wants You To Know

  More than ever these days, the sales process tends to be a war about price, a frustrating, unpleasant war that takes all the fun out of selling. What the customer wants you to know is how his or her business works, so you can help make it work better. It sounds simple, but there's a catch: you won't be able to do that with your traditional sales approach. What the Customer Wants defines a new approach to selling which Charan calls value creation selling that while radical is nonetheless practical.

  
  
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  January 2007

  Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't

  The new grand theory of leadership by Ram Charan . . . The breakthrough book that links know-how—the skills of people who know what they are doing— with the personal and psychological traits of the successful leader.

  
  
• 
  June 2002

  Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

   

  The book that shows how to get the job done and deliver results . . . whether you're running an entire company or in your first management job.

  
  
• 
  March 2001

  Every Business Is A Growth Business

  Every Business Is a Growth Business is your one-stop guide to making profitable growth happen. It's a radical and refreshing source of ideas, inspiration, and common sense, all based on the unparalleled experience and access of Ram Charan and Noel Tichy.

  
  
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  February 2001

  What the CEO Wants You to Know: How Your Company Really Works

  The best CEOs have a knack for bringing the most complex business down to the fundamentals-the same fundamentals of the family shoe shop. They have business acumen-the ability to focus on the basics and make money for the company. What the CEO Wants You to Know captures these insights and explains in clear, simple language how to do what great CEOs do instinctively and persistently.

  
  
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  December 2000

  The Leadership Pipeline

  Presents a proven model showing companies how to identify future leaders, assess their competence, plan their development, and otherwise nurture leadership within the organization. Shows how to integrate the leadership planning process at every level, investing in the future of the company through its employees.

  
  
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  March 1998

  Boards At Work

  Ram Charan is a wise counselor and keen observer on the front lines of the American board revolution. Boards At Work is a rare blAnd of candid stories of casualties, of victories, and of sound ideas for change illustrated with real-world examples of how to adopt them.