Faculty and Research

Tony Mayo is the Thomas S. Murphy Distinguished Research Fellow and a Lecturer in the Organizational Behavior unit of Harvard Business School (HBS).  He co-created and currently teaches a new MBA course called "Great Business Leaders:  The Importance of Contextual Intelligence" and teaches extensively in many leadership development executive education programs.  Tony also serves as the Director of the HBS Leadership Initiative.  The Leadership Initiative is an interdisciplinary center that strives to serve as a catalyst for cutting-edge research and course development on leaders and leadership.  He is the co-author of In Their Time:  The Greatest Business Leaders of the 20^th Century, which has been translated into 5 languages.  He is also the co-author of Paths to Power: How Insiders and Outsiders Shaped American Business Leadership and the newly released book Entrepreneurs, Managers and Leaders:  What the Airline Industry Can Teach Us About Leadership.  These books have been derived from the development of the Great American Business Leaders database that Professor Nitin Nohria and Tony created for the Leadership Initiative (see http://www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/index.html).

As Director of the Leadership Initiative, Tony oversees several comprehensive research projects on emerging, global, and legacy leadership and manages a number of executive education programs on leadership development.  He was a co-creator of the High Potentials Leadership Development and the Leadership Best Practices programs and has been a principal contributor to a number of custom leadership development programs.  He created and oversees the executive coaching component of Harvard Business School's Program for Leadership Development.

Prior to his current role, Tony  pursued a career in database marketing where he held senior general management positions at advertising agency - Hill Holliday, database management firm - Epsilon, and full-service direct marketing company - DIMAC Marketing Corporation.  Most recently, Tony served as the General Manager of Hill Holliday's Customer Relationship Management Practice. 

At Epsilon, he served as Acting Chief Executive Officer where he had full responsibility for the delivery and management of strategic and database marketing services for Fortune 1000 companies and national not-for-profit organizations.  He also held senior management positions in Epsilon's sales and account management departments.  At DIMAC Marketing Corporation, Tony served as Vice President of Strategic Development and Acting Chief Financial Officer.  In this capacity, Tony led the development of an integrated strategic plan for DIMAC's disparate business units and coordinated the ultimate sale of the company.  Prior to his work in the database marketing industry, Tony served as the Director of MBA Program Administration at Harvard Business School. 

Tony completed his MBA from Harvard Business School and received his Bachelor's Degree, summa cum laude, from Boston College.