Thomas Zweifel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Thomas Zweifel | |
|---|---|
 Dr. Thomas D. Zweifel |
|
| Born | Thomas David Zweifel January 7, 1962 Paris France |
| Occupation | Leadership Development |
| Nationality | United States, Switzerland |
Thomas David Zweifel (born January 7, 1962, Paris) is a global leadership expert, professor, entrepreneur, and author.
He is the CEO of Swiss Consulting Group, a leadership professor at Columbia University, and an author of international leadership books. He was born in Paris to a Christian father (Hans-Ulrich Zweifel, an architect) and a Jewish mother (Eva Schönberg, one of the first female judges in Switzerland after women got the vote in 1971). His great-grandfather, Rabbi David Strauss of Zurich, had attended the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.
Zweifel was educated in Switzerland; at 17, while still in school, he became an actor at the Stadttheater (municipal theatre) Basel and later at the Werktheater Basel, which he co-founded at 19. Acting and directing gave him key leadership skills, for example in public speaking, empathy with any character, or improvisation under uncertainty. He later earned a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in International Political Economy from New York University.
From 1985 to 1997 Zweifel served on the staff of The Hunger Project, an international NGO on the roster of the United Nations, dedicated to ending world hunger by empowering hungry people as the key leaders and change agents of their own development.
As director of global operations, he oversaw 27 global affiliates, but lacked the legal authority to impose decisions, hire/fire staff, or control their budgets. Being nevertheless accountable for their business performance, and living in Europe, Japan, India and the United States, Zweifel became a pioneer of cross-cultural management and remote leadership coaching.
In the late 1990s, Zweifel developed a comprehensive theory of leadership in collaboration with other scholars and practitioners, and in 1997 became CEO of Swiss Consulting Group, a New York-based global performance management company with coaches/facilitators on five continents who facilitate leaders and teams in all sectors (Fortune 500 and entrepreneurs, government and UN, NGO and military) to meet business challenges by focusing on the human element (coaching leaders, communication, cross-cultural management).
Prof. Zweifel teaches leadership at Columbia University in New York, St. Gall Business School [1], Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya [2], and other universities in the United States, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He is a regular radio and television commentator, for example on CNN and ABC News [3].
In 1996 Zweifel realized his dream of breaking three hours in the New York City Marathon, and in 1997 was named "fastest CEO in the New York City Marathon.”
[edit] Books
In addition to numerous articles, Zweifel has published several books on democracy and leadership (saying that "leadership and democracy need each other. Leadership without democracy is dictatorship, and democracy without leadership is anarchy"):
- 2002: Democratic Deficit? Institutions and Regulation in the European Union, Switzerland, and the United States (Rowman & Littlefield)
- 2003: Communicate or Die: Getting Results Through Speaking and Listening (SelectBooks)
- 2003: Culture Clash: Managing the Global High-Performance Team (SelectBooks)
- 2005: International Organizations: Democracy, Accountability, Power (Lynne Rienner Publishers)
