John Beeson

John Beeson is a senior fellow in human capital at The Conference Board. In addition to his work at The Conference Board, he is author of The Unwritten Rules: the Six Skills You Need to Get Promoted to the Executive Level (Jossey-Bass) and principal of Beeson Consulting, a management consulting firm he founded 21 years ago. Beeson Consulting specializes in succession planning; executive assessment, feedback, and coaching; and organization design and development. Typical clients include Fortune 100 global corporations and increasingly, work with private equity firms and their investment companies. 

Earlier in his career, Beeson served as partner and officer of Harbridge House, Inc., a Boston-based management consulting firm.  In addition to his consulting experience, Beeson worked at Hallmark Cards and Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, Inc. At both Hallmark and Frito-Lay his responsibilities included succession planning, executive development, and organization development on a company-wide basis.

Beeson is a graduate of AmherstCollege and holds an MBA from the Wharton Graduate Division of the University of Pennsylvania.  His articles on succession planning and talent development have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Business Horizons, People & Strategy, and The Conference Board Review. He originated and served as program director for two conferences of The Conference Board: 1) the Succession Planning and Top Talent Development seminar series and 2) the Organization Design and Renewal Conference. 

He is co-author of The Conference Board research study, Developing Business Leaders for 2010. His articles on succession planning and talent development have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Business Horizons, People &Strategy, and Across the Board. He has been a regular blog contributor for the Harvard Business Review on leadership and executive development issues and has contributed blog articles for The Conference Board as well.