Bio
John Danner is a thought leader, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestselling author, trusted advisor and respected teacher at the intersection of leadership, innovation, strategy and entrepreneurship. For over four decades, John has helped senior business, nonprofit and government executives around the world navigate rapidly changing environments like high tech, healthcare, energy, financial services, and consumer products.
He is the co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Built for Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win, about the personality characteristics of highly successful entrepreneurs; as well as the Amazon bestseller, The Other ‘F’ Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work. His articles and interviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Entrepreneur, Inc., Forbes, The Economist, Chief Executive and many other US and global media channels.
John teaches at two of the nation’s finest universities: The University of California Berkeley and Princeton University. As a Senior Fellow at University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School, Mr. Danner teaches MBA courses in entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation. He also launched a popular campus-wide course on entrepreneurship to address global challenges, and advises the Global Social Venture Competition. As a visiting faculty member at Princeton University each fall semester, he teaches interdisciplinary courses on entrepreneurship and launched a pilot venture development program for campus entrepreneurs. He also anchors executive education programs on five continents, including Aspen Institute leadership seminars. He created the idea for TED University, and is a popular keynote speaker for executive and industry audiences globally.
As a management consultant, Mr. Danner has worked closely with senior executive teams on a broad range of strategic issues in a diverse array of industry settings - from energy and healthcare to consumer products and multimedia. His clients have included Fortune 500 global enterprises as well as high-tech startups; and his work has involved issues ranging from long-range business strategy and diversification initiatives to change management, technology integration, executive training and high-profile project management. He frequently works for clients on an industry-exclusive basis, often over several years.
John has held senior-level state and federal positions, working as a senior aide to then-Governor Bill Clinton, and later to Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler in establishing the US Department of Education. In addition, at Morrison & Foerster, he represented major legal clients in telecommunications, real estate, energy, and investment banking.
Mr. Danner holds the JD, MPH and MAEd degrees from the University of California, Berkeley; and served as Assistant Editor of the California Law Review. He received his AB cum laude from Harvard College.
He and his wife live in Berkeley, CA and New York City, and have three adult sons. He enjoys travel, cartography and information graphics, among many other interests.