Bio

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of 16 books including:

  • Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance–And What We Can Do about It
  • Leadership B.S.: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time;
  • The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First;
  • Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don’t;
  • The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action;
  • Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management
  • And more than 150 articles and book chapters.

In June, 2022, Matt Holt published Pfeffer’s latest book, 7 Rules of Power: Surprising–But True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career.

Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught for six years at the University of California, Berkeley. Pfeffer has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University, London Business School, Copenhagen Business School, and for the past 14 years a visitor at IESE in Barcelona.

From 2003-2007, Pfeffer wrote a monthly column, “The Human Factor,” for the 650,000-person circulation business magazine, Business 2.0 and from 2007-2010, he wrote a monthly column providing career advice for Capital, a leading business and economics magazine in Turkey.  Pfeffer has also written for Fortune.com, BNET, the Washington Post, BloombergBusinessWeek.com, BBC’s Capital, and is an Influencer on LinkedIn.

Pfeffer currently serves on the advisory boards for Collective Health and Quorso, and on the board of the nonprofit Quantum Leap Healthcare. In the past he has served on the boards of Resumix, Unicru, and Workstream  (WSTM), all human capital software companies, Audible Magic, an internet company, SonoSite (SONO), a NASDAQ company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines, Berlin Packaging, a Chicago-based supplier of packaging services, and the San Francisco Playhouse, a non-profit theater.

Pfeffer has presented seminars in 40 countries throughout the world as well as doing consulting and providing executive education for numerous companies, associations, and universities in the United States.

Jeffrey Pfeffer has won the Richard D. Irwin Award presented by the Academy of Management for scholarly contributions to management and numerous awards for his articles and books. He is in the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame and has been listed as one of the Most Influential HR International Thinkers by HR Magazine. In November, 2011, he was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

Download CV