Biography

Nancy F. Koehn, an authority on business history, is the James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Koehn's research focuses on entrepreneurship, leadership, and connecting with customers in the Information Revolution. She is currently working on a book about the most important leadership lessons from Abraham Lincoln and another on social entrepreneurs. Her most recent book, Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell (Harvard Business School Press, 2001) examines six entrepreneurial visionaries who have created powerful brands and best-of-class companies in moments of great change.

Koehn is also the author of The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire (1994), as well as a contributor to Remember Who You Are: Life Stories That Inspire the Heart and Mind (2004); The Intellectual Venture Capitalist: John H. McArthur and the Work of the Harvard Business School, 1980-1995 (1999); Creating Modern Capitalism: How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in Three Industrial Revolutions (1997); and Management Past and Present: A Casebook on American Business History (1995). She has written and supervised cases on Oprah Winfrey, Starbucks Coffee Company, Ernest Shackleton, Wedgwood, Williams-Sonoma, Estée Lauder, Henry Heinz, Milton Hershey, Celeste Walker, Marshall Field, Dell Computer, and other leaders and organizations.

At the Harvard Business School, she teaches the MBA elective Entrepreneurial Leadership: Past, Present, and Future. For many years, she taught, The Coming of Managerial Capitalism, one of the School's most popular courses.

Koehn consults with many companies and speaks frequently before business leaders on a range of issues including leading in turbulent times, the power of strong brands, visionary entrepreneurs, and learning from history. In 2001, Business 2.0 named Koehn one of 19 leading business gurus in the United States. She has appeared on "Good Morning America," CNBC's "Moneywheel," "Nightly Business Report," and "Street Signs," "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," A&E's "Biography," CNN's "Money Line" and many other television programs. She is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio.

Before coming to HBS in 1991, Koehn was a member of Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences for seven years, first as a graduate student in history and then as a lecturer in the History and Literature concentration and the Department of Economics. During the years, she received the Allyn Young prize in 1989 and numerous Danforth commendations for excellence in teaching.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Koehn earned a Master of Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 1983. She worked as a congressional aide before receiving her MA and Ph.D. in European history from Harvard University. 

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