The Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership is grounded in the idea that leaders need more than knowledge—they need action skills to achieve their goals and insight skills to learn from their successes and failures.
What does the Davis Center for Leadership do? We offer a variety of programs, MBA courses, and leadership resources designed to help build your leadership skills. Whether you’re a Booth alumnus, student, or a member of the broader community, our programs will empower you with the skills to continually learn from experience throughout your career.
Harry L. Davis
The Davis Center was named in honor of Harry L. Davis, the Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management Emeritus, who has been a major force of innovation at Chicago Booth for six decades. Thanks in large part to Davis’s work, the school has become recognized for its many contributions to experience-based learning and leadership development.
The common thread throughout Harry’s work is curiosity about human beings: why and how we do what we do, personally as well as professionally. In 1992, he collaborated with Robin Hogarth on “Rethinking Management Education: A View from Chicago,” a paper that laid out a powerful framework on helping students acquire action skills and insight skills, or the ability to reflect on the outcome of our actions and draw the right lessons from experience.
Today, that framework underlies much of the Chicago Booth curriculum, and the Davis Center continues to lead the way in helping students learn more effectively from their experience.
Meet the Team
Robert W. Vishny
Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Finance
Robert W. Vishny
Carolyn Ou, Executive Director
Carolyn Ou is Executive Director of the Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership. She collaborates with our campus partners and alumni to design, deliver and support alumni leadership programming worldwide. She brings to the role her experiences in consulting, marketing, education and entrepreneurship, as well as a passion for creating effective leaders at all levels.
In parallel, Carolyn is a Leadership Coach, Teacher and Healer who partners with myriad types of leaders—entrepreneurs and educators, advertising professionals, politicians, consultants and more—on achieving their work, life and leadership goals. Carolyn is trained in Co-Active Coaching by the Coaches Training Institute and has developed a number of online and on-ground workshops on leadership, career development and personal development. She is a C-IQ Enhanced skills Coach, is certified as a Marshall Goldsmith Executive Coaching Stakeholder-Centered Coach and is an Executive/Career Coaching provider for the Brown University Alumni Association.
She brings to this work her inner geek, creative collaborator and wisdom gained from experience as a change management and strategy consultant, marketing copywriter, Disc Jockey and Dean of a design college. She co-founded and ran the Logan Square Mompreneurs group in Chicago from 2008-2015. She has an MBA in Strategy from Indiana University and a BA with Honors in Renaissance Studies and Comparative Literature from Brown University.
Chelsea Fishman, Senior Associate Director, Communications & Programs
Chelsea produces the Davis Center's open-enrollment minicourses and Leadership Rehearsal series. Chelsea also is responsible for the Center's communications, and previously served on the editorial staff of Chicago Booth Review and Chicago Booth Magazine.
Chelsea Fishman, Senior Associate Director, Communications & Programs
Samantha Coleman, Senior Associate Director of Leadership Development
Samantha partners with faculty and staff to create innovative leadership opportunities for current students and alumni across the globe. Her experiences as a scholar, executive coach, and social entrepreneur assist her in inspiring others across industries to lead with their most authentic selves with a consistent pursuit toward personal and professional mastery.
Samantha Coleman, Senior Associate Director of Leadership Development
Devin Cox, Assistant Director of Operations and Programs
Devin provides operational support to Davis Center programs, overseeing event logistics, supplies, and contracts. He ensures that the programs run smoothly from start to finish and strives to create positive, meaningful experiences for Booth students and alumni.
Devin Cox, Assistant Director of Operations and ProgramsImpact Report
With your generous support, we continue to deliver on our core programs, as well as create and launch new leadership experiences for members of our valued network. Learn more about our work in our annual Impact Report.
Explore Stories from the Davis Center
The Book of Booth: Professor Harry Davis
The leadership pioneer reflects on ways that the Booth community comes together during times of crisis.
The Book of Booth: Professor Harry Davis
How Do You Develop Leadership Skills?
Three experts discuss how executives can grow as leaders.
How Do You Develop Leadership Skills?
Embracing Uncertainty
Professor Harry L. Davis and David Booth, ’71, came together for a fireside chat that touched on chance taking, Booth’s small-town upbringing, and advice for young graduates.
Embracing UncertaintyGet Updates from the Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership
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