The High-Potential Leader

Acknowledgments

This book began one day when I was teaching a newly designed program for high-potential leaders at Wharton Business School. Deb Giffen, director of Innovative Learning Solutions at Wharton Executive Education, inspired me to create a book with practical hands-on advice aimed at the new generation of leaders. I agreed to try to fill the void if she would lend her expertise. Her broad-based knowledge of leadership concepts and best practices and her ability to translate ideas into practical tools is unsurpassed. I am deeply grateful for her substantive contributions, especially for doing the heavy lifting in creating the checklists.

What really brings this book to life are the firsthand accounts that many busy and accomplished leaders so generously shared with me. I am grateful beyond words for their willingness to tell their stories and share their learning. In particular, I want to thank Dom Barton, Kishore Biyani, Laszlo Bock, Dennis Carey, Mike DeDomenico, Love Goel, Mary Anne Elliott, Mark Fields, Pat Gallagher, Kiran Kumar Grandhi, Aaron Greenblatt, Deb Henretta, Bonnie Hill, Aaron Levie, Sunil Mittal, Tony Palmer, Ivan Seidenberg, Ning Tang, Tadashi Yanai, and Peter Zaffino.

I have learned from many other thinkers and leaders over the years, including: Dick Antoine, Gene Batchelder, Cathy Benko, John Berisford, Bruce Broussard, John Chiminski, Bill Conaty, Ian Cooke, Roger Cude, Frank D’Souza, Alex Gorsky, Fred Hassan, Chad Holliday, Tim Huval, Andrea Jung, ...