John Beeson

John Beeson is Principal of Beeson Consulting, a management consulting firm specializing in succession planning; executive assessment, coaching, and development; and organization design. Earlier in his career, John was a partner and officer of Harbridge House, Inc., a Boston-based management consulting firm. In addition to his consulting experience, he worked at Hallmark Cards and Frito-Lay. At both companies his responsibilities included succession planning on a company-wide basis. Over the course of his career, John has assessed and coached scores of executives and participated innumerous executive-level promotion and placement decisions.

John is a graduate of Amherst College and holds an MBA from the Wharton GraduateDivision of the University of Pennsylvania. His articles on succession planning and talent development have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Business Horizons, People & Strategy, and The Conference Board Review. He enjoys a longstanding relationship with The Conference Board, having originated the Succession Planning/Top Talent Development Conference and the Organization Design and Renewal Conference. He also served as principal researcher and co-author of a major Conference Board research report, “Developing Business Leaders for 2010.” He is the author of The Unwritten Rules: The Six Skills You Need to Get Promoted to the Executive Level. In addition to his writing for Big Think, you may also find John's articles on leadership and executive development at the Harvard Business Review.