Michael Zwell. Michael Zwell, Ph. D., is a globally recognized Human Capital expert who has helped hundreds of organizations develop the systems, processes and people to achieve their organizational mission and potential. He has also worked on both sides of the table: he has implemented solutions in other organization, and founded and built several companies himself.
Dr. Zwell is also an adjunct Executive Coach with the Wright Business Institute specializing in coaching executives and managers who are building cultures, dealing with performance management, creating cultural change and increasing their management and leadership impact. He is excellent at giving straight, clear feedback to help executives uncover their blind spots and take practical steps to increase their effectiveness. Mr. Zwell has worked with a wide range of executives and their teams with a significant concentration in banking and capital markets where his former executive search firm specialized in staffing and top management team development.
In service of private equity firms, Dr. Zwell has developed performance management systems, conducted searches for CEOS and board members, and evaluated management teams and C-level candidates. Dr. Zwell consulted with American Capital Strategies to help it develop its current performance management system and he founded the company that developed the technology they are currently using for performance management.
Dr. Zwell received a B.A. from the University of Chicago with honors in 1970. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, he received an M.Phil. (1972) and a Ph.D. from Yale University (1974), both in anthropology. Throughout his professional career he has used his anthropological perspective to analyze how organizations function and help them maximize their potential and their mission.
After a stint teaching at Rutgers University, consulting, and writing a book, Dr. Zwell began a career in executive search in 1980. He founded his own firm, Zwell International, in 1982, initially focusing on executive search in financial services. In 1989, however, realizing that the traditional executive search process did a mediocre job of predicting performance, he began to study the research on the factors predicting job success. In the course of the next few years Dr. Zwell developed groundbreaking tools for assessing leadership competencies in the search process and evaluating corporate culture and fit. The use of these technologies catapulted Dr. Zwell to the top of the profession, and by the mid-1990’s he was filling CEO and board positions, as well as consulting for organizations on their human capital processes and systems. He began developing and installing competency-based selection, performance management, and competency development systems in organizations, and in 1998 founded Exxceed, Inc., to automate those processes on the web. Exxceed was sold in 2006.
Dr. Zwell has written and spoken extensively on topics related to getting the best and the most from your human capital. In 2000 he published the highly acclaimed Creating a Culture of Competence (John Wiley & Sons) on how to create high-performing organizations. Boards & Directors published his article, “How to Hire the Right CEO”, in 1998, and recently reprinted portions of it in their 30th anniversary issue. He is currently finishing his third book, to be published by Adams Media in late 2007.
