The Bernstein Center is pleased to announce that Katherine W. Phillips, the Reuben Mark Professor of Organizational Character, has been appointed Director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics, effective August 1.  Professor Phillips will take on the role held by Bruce Kogut, the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Professor of Leadership and Ethics, who has contributed significantly to the Center over the years.

Phillips joined the Management Division as a full tenured professor in 2011—she was subsequently appointed the inaugural Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics in the Faculty of Business. Prior to joining the School, she was an associate professor with tenure at Kellogg School of Management and co-director of the Center on the Science of Diversity at Northwestern University. She received a BS in psychology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994, and a PhD in business from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, in 1999. She was most recently Senior Vice Dean from 2014–2017.

As director, Professor Phillips will continue to shape the strategic direction of the Bernstein Center's curriculum and programming. She will be setting and overseeing the priorities of the Center, including engaging faculty leaders across departments, enhancing the student experience as it relates to leadership and ethics, sponsoring and promoting research, and increasing the Center's external presence. Phillips will focus on developing new initiatives to expand the scope of the Center's activities and its engagement with the alumni base and outside audiences. 

The Bernstein Center also wants to thank Professor Kogut for his leadership of the Center, successfully coordinating 15 Leadership and Ethics conferences; initiating the popular Bernstein Debates series; launching the Bernstein faculty and doctoral grants to promote research in leadership and ethics; expanding and enhancing the ethics curriculum by developing new electives and strengthening orientation and core coursework; continuing to coordinate premier speaking events, including The Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics, the Paul Montrone series, and the Klion Forum; co-producing, with the Fred Friendly group, an event on the financial crisis that was broadcasted by PBS; and working directly with the Student Leadership and Ethics Board to foster a culture and safeguard a tradition of principled leadership throughout the Business School community. 

The Bernstein Center is confident that Professor Phillips will continue this legacy of success, working closely with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends to enhance our reputation as a global vanguard in the promotion of ethics in business school curriculum and the development of innovative research and programming on business ethics, leadership, and governance. Everyone in the Bernstein Center, including Olivia Haynes and Shirley Sheung, look forward to working with Phillips.