Dr Carol Kauffman
United States
Founder, Institute of Coaching, Harvard Medical School; Senior Leadership Advisor, Egon Zehnder
Founder of the Institute of Coaching at Harvard Medical School, established in 2009 on a $2m grant, and founding Editor-in-Chief of Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice. She launched the Coaching in Leadership & Healthcare Conference and the IOC Leadership Forum, and supervises an international group of leadership coaches. Visiting Professor at Henley Business School and Senior Leadership Advisor at Egon Zehnder.
Why this placement
Founding the field's peer-reviewed journal is a different order of contribution from being ranked in it. A journal outlives the person who started it, creates a venue for everyone else's work, and is the single clearest act of generosity anywhere in this study — the criterion this methodology weights at fifteen per cent and most rankings ignore entirely.
Thinkers50 Hall of Fame 2025, confirmed on Thinkers50's own site, plus a Coaches50 listing and a 2023 award shortlist with David Noble. Real-Time Leadership (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023) is a serious trade book, independently corroborated at ISBN level.
Editorial notes and exclusions
- No city is printed. Neither her own site nor Thinkers50's biography states one, and her Harvard Medical School affiliation is not the same as a stated residence.
- Her most-quoted accolade — "#1 leadership coach in the world" — is a personal opinion from Marshall Goldsmith, and she is a founding member of his network. Excluded under the interlink adjustment.
- Her doctorate's issuing institution is not named on any page found. No ICF credential found.
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