How Online

The Author

Dov Seidman

Dov Seidman has built a career, and pioneered an industry, around the idea that the most principled businesses are the most profitable over the long term.

Fourteen years ago, long before Enron, Dov founded LRN with a powerful vision that the world would be a better place if more people did the right thing. From that basic notion, he has grown a successful company that has helped to shape the ways millions of employees, managers and leaders behave and interact all over the globe.

Dov is recognized as a thought leader on a range of topics - from achieving significance, not just success, in our new 21^st century world, to the importance of trust in personal and business dealings to succeeding with both principles and profits in mind.

In the wake of the corporate scandals that rocked global business, Dov testified in 2004 before the U.S. Sentencing Commission, arguing that check-the-box, compliance-only approaches were insufficient. Only by focusing on the underlying corporate culture could scandals be avoided. His views helped shape the amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

In 2007, his book, HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life), was published by John Wiley & Sons, detailing years of thought about business cultures, philosophy and success. In the acclaimed book, Dov argues, outbehaving competitors has become critical to outperforming them. In our hyperconnected and hypertransparent world, it is no longer what we do that sets us apart from others, but how we do what we do that matters. HOW was named a best business and leadership book of 2007 and a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

The premise of Dov’s book is featured as one of the nine rules for companies to embrace in Thomas L. Friedman’s seminal book, The World is Flat. Further, the HOW philosophy is featured in Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, in which Dov calls for a green revolution through individual and organizational actions and behaviors, not just green products and services. Each month, Dov shares his views on human behavior as the ultimate source of competitive advantage in a monthly column on the HOW perspective for BusinessWeek.com.

Dov is frequently invited to speak at leading industry events and to senior management and boards of directors. Recent presentations include The National Press Club, The Aspen Ideas Festival, The Milken Institute Forum, The Forbes Business Visionaries Series, Gartner’s Outsourcing and Vendor Management Summit, The Outstanding Directors Exchange and The Defense Industry Initiative’s Best Practices Forum. Recent media appearances include ABC’s Good Morning America, BusinessWeek, Charlie Rose, Condé Nast Portfolio and The New York Times. He has also been the keynote speaker at UCLA’s annual commencement.

Dov earned simultaneous bachelor’s and master’s degrees, summa cum laude, in philosophy from UCLA. He later earned a B.A. with honors in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University, where he was a Newton-Tatum scholar and captain of the Balliol College crew team. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. He and his wife Maria live in Los Angeles, where LRN is headquartered.