Allan R. Cohen, MBA with distinction and DBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, has been at Babson since 1982. Professor Cohen holds the Edward A. Madden Distinguished Professorship in Global Leadership and is in residence at the San Francisco campus. He completed seven years as vice president of academic affairs and dean of faculty and recently served two years as the interim dean of the graduate school. He was awarded the college’s highest honor, The Walter Carpenter Prize for distinguished service. 

His career has been devoted to increasing the leadership and management skills of practicing and aspiring managers and to building innovative academic organizations. A consultant on organizational change and leadership for companies as large as GE, IBM, and Lafarge, and as entrepreneurial as Access Technology and Menon and Menon Diesel Engines, he helped found the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. He has also lived and worked in the Philippines, England, and Holland and has consulted in China, Brazil, Venezuela, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Singapore, and Dubai. At the University of New Hampshire, he was the J. R. Carter Professor of Management and helped build the Whittemore School.  Throughout his career he has directed and taught in executive development programs for thousands of managers. 

Dr. Cohen’s first book, based on his doctoral dissertation, was Tradition, Change and Conflict in Indian Family Business, published by Mouton in The Hague. He is the coauthor with David Bradford of numerous books widely used by managers: the best seller Managing for Excellence; the award-winning Alternative Work Arrangements; Power Up: Transforming Organizations through Shared Leadership; Influence without Authority; and Influencing Up. He edited The Portable MBA in Management. And his coauthored best-selling text book with Fink, Gadon, and Willits, Effective Behavior in Organizations, through its seven editions helped transform the teaching of organizational behavior. 

Areas of expertise include leadership and influence, changes in organizations, educational methods, management and organizational behavior, cross-functional teams, family business, management development for international work, negotiations, corporate entrepreneurship, and strategic change. He has served on the boards of several nonprofits, including First Place for Youth, Vinfen, Families for Depression Awareness, and the Cambridge School of Weston