Kerry J. Sulkowicz, M.D.

Kerry J. Sulkowicz, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is the founder of the Boswell Group LLC, a consulting firm focusing on the psychology of business. One of the nation’s leading corporate psychoanalysts, Dr. Sulkowicz advises CEOs, corporate directors and other business leaders on critical aspects of managing complex organizations.

Top executives in highly successful organizations find it essential to have an ongoing opportunity to discuss the people side of their business, particularly the most sensitive and ambiguous issues with psychological underpinnings and implications. These include assisting boards with CEO succession, advising first-time CEOs, improving senior management team dynamics, changing corporate culture at the top, facilitating board - management relationships, and addressing corporate crises.

Dr. Sulkowicz frequently assists boards of directors on CEO transitions, helping retire standing CEOs decisively and with dignity, and then assessing candidates for the job from the perspective of personality and cultural fit. He conducts human capital due diligence for private equity firms and other investors. Dr. Sulkowicz also pioneered the use of Strategic Psychological Intelligence (SPI), providing psychological profiling – at a distance - of high-stakes negotiation targets. He often spends the day with a CEO, an executive management team or a board of directors, engaging them in the most thorny but necessary conversations, and leading them to solutions to difficult organizational problems.

Dr. Sulkowicz has consulted to a wide array of corporations, including Fortune 500 companies in financial services, manufacturing, transportation, media and healthcare, along with hedge funds and private equity firms, technology companies, management consulting firms, a major university and large family-owned enterprises. In addition to his role in the Boswell Group, he is also Chairman of Loree Newmyer Sulkowicz, LLC, a retained executive search firm. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at Katzenbach Partners LLC, a management consulting firm founded by three former McKinsey & Co. alumni in 1998.

Dr. Sulkowicz is a regular columnist for Business Week magazine, writing the biweekly “Analyze This” column, answering readers’ questions on the psychology of business and offering his unique perspective on business news. His article “Worse than Enemies: The CEO’s Dangerous Confidant” appeared in the February 2004 issue of the Harvard Business Review, and he was an expert commentator for the May 2006 Harvard Business Review Case Study, on CEO succession and corporate innovation. Prior to Business Week, he was a Contributing Editor at Fast Company magazine, where he wrote the monthly “Corporate Shrink” column. His article on “Chairman’s Style Governs Board Dynamics” was featured in the August 2003 issue of Directors Monthly, and another piece, on “New Organizational and Psychological Challenges of the Audit Committee,” appeared in the Fall 2003 Audit Committee Quarterly. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, Fortune Small Business, The New York Observer, The Robb Report, and WebMD, among many other publications. He was profiled in the July 2003 issue of Elle. Dr. Sulkowicz is frequently quoted in the press, and has appeared on NBC Nightline, CNBC Bullseye, BBC World News, NPR Marketplace, Fox & Friends, and New York 1.

A frequent public speaker, his recent presentations include “Integrity and Self-Deception in Corporate America,” and an address to the National Conference on Corporate Governance on “The Mind of the Boardroom.” In January 2004, he delivered a keynote address to the National Association of Corporate Directors on “Independence of Mind for Directors.” He is often invited to present live versions of his “Corporate Shrink” column to business audiences.

Dr. Sulkowicz is a founding member of the Committee on Corporate and Organizational Consultation of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and serves as Chair of the Association’s Committee on Public Information. He received the Association’s Edith Sabshin Teaching Award, as well as the Distinguished Teacher Award at New York University School of Medicine. He is also an active member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.

A Texas native and graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Sulkowicz earned his M.D. from the University of Texas and was a Resident and Chief Resident in psychiatry at New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Sulkowicz serves on the Boards of the Appleseed Foundation and the Lucy Daniels Foundation.