Who we are

James Noel

Senior Advisor

James L. Noel, MBA, EdD, has over 20 years of experience in developing senior leaders and executive coaching. His perspective on leadership development was shaped by his tenure at General Electric's leadership development institute, Crotonville, where he was Manager of Executive Education and Leadership Effectiveness.

Jim was Vice President of Executive Development at Citibank, where he initiated an intensive development program to support new business heads and a company-wide change process called Team Challenge.

As Director of Executive Development at Philip Morris, his responsibilities included succession planning, preparing slates of candidates, external recruitment of senior talent, and the development of the company's senior leadership.

Jim also served as Vice President of Staffing and Development at the Burlington Northern Railroad, with a staff of 200 human-resource and training professionals. He put in place a company-wide performance management and succession-planning process. At the time of the merger of the Santa Fe and Burlington Northern railroads, he was given the responsibility of merging the two corporate staffs.

Early in his career, Jim was an Assistant Dean of the College of General Studies at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Dean of Continuing Education at Auburn University at Montgomery.

Jim has co-authored several books: Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions that Make or Break a Leader (with David Dotlich and Norman Walker), The Leadership Pipeline (with Ram Charan and Stephen Drotter), and Action Learning (with David Dotlich). He is also co-editor (with David Dotlich) of the 2008 Pfeiffer Annual on Leadership Development.

Jim lives with his wife, Sarah, in New Hampshire. They have two adult daughters, both of whom are educators.