William F. Baker

WILLIAM F. BAKER, Ph.D. is Executive in Residence at Columbia University Business School and President Emeritus of Educational Broadcasting Corporation, parent company of WNET-TV (Channel Thirteen) and WLIW-TV (Channel 21), where he served for 20 years as Chief Executive Officer. He has been called an icon of public television for producing some of the industry’s most respected and popular programs, including Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers Journal, Nature, Cyberchase, and Great Performances. Among numerous honors, he has won seven Emmys and two Columbia Dupont Journalism awards, and was named to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Management Hall of Fame and the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was appointed as a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.

Prior to public broadcasting, Bill Baker was President of Westinghouse Television and Chairman of Group W. Satellite Communications for almost a decade. He launched the Discovery Channel and the Disney Channel, and got Oprah Winfrey started as a television talk show host. Frequently sought out as an expert on the media, he is also the author of Down the Tube: An Inside Account of the Failure of American Television (Basic Books, 1998) and the executive producer of a documentary film, The Face: Jesus in Art.

Dr. Baker, and his friend Dr. Michael O'Mally of yale university have co-authored the book Leading With Kindness.

Using engaging stories featuring leaders from a range of organizations—Pitney Bowes, Tupperware, The Blackstone Group, Eileen Fisher Clothing, GE, Smucker’s, Walt Disney, Rodale Publishing, the Julliard School, John Deere, Time Warner, and Burt’s Bees among them—LEADING WITH KINDNESS shows how kind leaders reinforce expectations for employees by establishing clear boundaries, telling the truth and encouraging growth through risk-taking.

Baker and O’Malley culminate with a look toward developing tomorrow’s leaders, the independent-minded Generation Y. As the authors demonstrate, today’s business leaders must instill four qualities in their successors to ensure success: self-confidence, self-control, self-awareness, and self-determination. Compelling and realistic, LEADING WITH KINDNESS leads the way to a prosperous and proud future for America.

External links

http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/cbs-directory/detail/151877/William+Baker
http://www.thirteen.org/blogs/