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Martin N. Davidson
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Martin N. Davidson
Education: A.B., Harvard College; Ph.D., Stanford University
Martin N. Davidson served as the Interim Executive Director of the Contemplative Sciences Center. He is the Johnson & Higgins Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. He also serves as senior associate dean and global chief diversity officer for the School. His thought leadership has changed how many executives approach inclusion, diversity, and equity in their organizations. He teaches, conducts research and consults with global leaders to help them use difference strategically to drive high performance. His research on the impact of culture and ethnicity on career development and on conflict management appears in top academic and practitioner publications including Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Research on Negotiation in Organizations, Journal of Personality, Review of Educational Research, and the International Journal of Conflict Management. He has also conducted research on four continents identifying the critical competencies for managing effectively across national boundaries.
His book, The End of Diversity as We Know It: Why Diversity Efforts Fail and How Leveraging Difference Can Succeed, introduces a research-driven roadmap to help leaders more effectively create and capitalize on diversity in organizations.
Martin has served on the Executive Circle of the CSC since 2014. His introduction to contemplative practice occurred 30 years ago in New Mexico, when his wife, Rachel Bagby, invited him to join her at a 10-day silent retreat for social activists of color. He remembers that sitting silently felt like he had returned to his natural state. Thus began his three-decade embrace of contemplative practice, which infuses his teaching and research on difference and diversity as well as his daily practice with Rachel.
In addition to teaching leadership in Darden's MBA and Executive Education programs, Davidson consults with leaders of a host of Fortune 500 firms, government agencies and social profit organizations, including the World Health Organization, Bank of America, Walt Disney Company, Massachusetts General Hospital, The Nature Conservancy, Tiffany Company, and the U.S. Navy SEALs. He was elected the national chair of the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division of the Academy of Management. Davidson has been featured in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and CNN. He has been a member of the Darden faculty since 1998. Previously, he was a member of the faculty of the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. For more information on Martin N. Davidson, his current and developing work visit www.leveragingdifference.com.
