Professor John Whitney, who joined the Management Division faculty in 1987, retired in August 2003 after a long and distinguished career in business and education. An entrepreneur and turnaround expert, he guided several troubled companies through successful turnarounds as chairman, CEO or COO. His 1986 book, Taking Charge: Management Guide for Troubled Companies and Turnarounds, is widely regarded as the bible for corporate turnarounds. Whitney taught at Harvard Business School from 1968 to 1970 and was an associate dean there from 1970 to 1972.
During his tenure at Columbia Business School, Whitney developed three of the School’s most popular elective courses: Turnaround Management, Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Managing in a Market Economy. In 2000, he co-authored, with Tina Packer, Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Management. Whitney consistently earned outstanding ratings in student evaluations and received the Singhvi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom in 1988 and 1996.