Bio

Dr. Kathleen Kelley Reardon, Professor Emerita of Management and Organization in the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, has served on the faculty of the MBA, Executive MBA, International MBA Programs, and held a joint position on the faculty of Preventive Medicine. She is a leading authority on persuasion, politics in the workplace, negotiation, and gender issues. She authored nine nonfiction books and numerous academic and professional press articles.

Her first book, Persuasion in Practice, was described by Public Opinion Quarterly as “a landmark contribution to the field.” Her trade books on politics at work, including The Secret Handshake, have been bestsellers. Her classic Harvard Business Review case “The Memo Every Woman Keeps in her Desk” was selected for inclusion in the 2022 book HBR at 100: The most Influential and Innovative Articles from Harvard Business Review’s First Century.

Dr. Reardon has been a speaker and consultant for such organizations as The Conference Board, Avery Dennison, CIGNA, Epson, Hewlett Packard, ARCO, AT&T, Toyota, IBM Watson Research Center, News Corp, Jet Propulsion Labs, Moog Aircraft, and SONY.

She is a Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi and Mortar Board graduate of the University of Connecticut (B.A.) and received her M.A. and Ph.D. summa cum laude and with distinction from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The National Communication Association awarded her the Gerald R. Miller Top Dissertation Award in the nation. She has been a Visiting Professor at Stanford University and Trinity College in Dublin.

Dr. Reardon has been interviewed on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, Bloomberg, All Things Considered, Marketplace, and hundreds of other media outlets and was a front-page blogger from 2005 to 2016 at the Huffington Post. She has published online blogs for the Harvard Business Review, The Conversation, Big Think and Thrive Global.

In 2013, she received the University of Connecticut Alumni Humanitarian Award for originating and co-founding First Star on-campus academies to help foster teens prepare for and succeed in college.

Dr. Reardon is also an oil and watercolor artist and novelist. Her first mystery/thriller, Shadow Campus, draws upon her study of workplace politics and gender issues. Published by Blue Mustang Press (Boston), it’s a fast-paced, “masterful debut mystery” (Forbes). The sequel, Damned If She Does (2020) was described by Kirkus Reviews as “informed and searing” and a “page-turning success." She is currently working on the third book of the trilogy.

Follow Dr. Reardon on Twitter @kathreardon

Articles, Publications, Appearances