Peter Koestenbaum

Peter Koestenbaum, author, consultant and executive coach, has been called the most important philosopher of our time. After a thirty-four year career as a philosophy professor at San Jose State University, Peter has traveled the world consulting with major companies, local governments and individuals in high levels of responsibility. His clients have included the city of Palo Alto, Ford Motor, Volvo, Renault, World Economic Forum, IBM, SE Banken (Sweden), LG Electronics (South Korea), Aspen Pharmaceuticals (South Africa) and Wells Fargo. He is a frequent lecturer and has conducted seminars on leadership, strategy and culture building in more than forty countries and on every continent. A frequent presenter at the World Economic Forum, he spends much of his time in individual leadership coaching and in helping to set up companies along the lines of the Leadership Diamond ® principles.  He founded and serves as the chairman of Philosophy-in-Business ™ and the Koestenbaum Institute to bring leadership philosophy to business people globally. Peter was born in Germany and raised in Venezuela, arriving in the United States right after WWII. He went to school at Stanford, University of California–Berkeley, Harvard and Boston Universities, receiving his BS, MA and PhD degrees, all in philosophy. He also studied physics and music, and worked intensively with psychologists and psychiatrists applying philosophic insights to the healing arts. He has written numerous books on philosophy and business, among which are Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness, The Heart of Business, The Philosophic Consultant: Revolutionizing Organizations with Ideas and Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophic Insight to the Real World (with Peter Block). For a deeper appreciation of Peter and his work see Dan Nakaso's interview for the San Jose Mercury News at http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25036741/peter-koestenbaum-challenges-executives-be-better-leaders. Contact information for Peter is on his website at http://www.pib.net/contact.htm