Monique Burns Thompson is an accomplished social entrepreneur who returns to HBS (class of 1993) and brings her twenty years of successful start-up and organizational leadership experience to her research and teaching at HBS. She has led as a co-founder, President, and Chief Curriculum Officer focusing specifically on building organizations and systems, developing leaders, and closely aligning programs and products with marketplace need. Burns Thompson currently teaches Authentic Leader Development (ALD) and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) in the MBA program. In addition, she teachers several courses in Executive Education, including Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) for the Program in Leadership Development (PLD) and is a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative where she teaches ALD. She also enjoys contributing to multiple executive programs that focus specifically on social sector leaders including the Strategic Perspective in Nonprofit Management (SPNM), UpSwell, and The Public Education Leadership Project (PELP). Burns Thompson received The Greenhill Award for her work as the faculty co-lead in a collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education to develop and deliver the Certificate for School Management and Leadership (CSML): designed to provide preK-12 school leaders with frameworks, skills, and knowledge to drive change and lead high performing schools. This entrepreneurial venture launched in 2018, using HBS Online, and has had over 35,000 participants.
Prior to HBS, Burns Thompson was the co-founder and President of Teach Plus, a national non-profit that trains excellent, experienced teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their profession and their students’ success. Teach Plus trained over 30,000 teacher leaders during its founding years and those leaders have introduced groundbreaking policies at the district, state, and federal level, and partnered with districts to use teacher instructional leadership to turn around failing schools.
Burns Thompson was also co-founder, President, and Chief Curriculum Officer of what Fast Company Magazine has called “one of the top ten companies changing the world,” New Leaders for New Schools. Her primary focus was the development, management and delivery of a world class training curriculum that focuses on giving new principals concrete skills in instructional and managerial leadership. New Leaders is now the largest recruiter and trainer of school leaders in the US.
When not an entrepreneur, Burns Thompson has spent her time working inside districts and the charter sector with leaders who are focused on change. This included as a consultant with The McKenzie Group in Washington, DC, being the Special Assistant to the Superintendent of the Philadelphia Public School District and leading the implementation of a $45 million productivity and efficiency program, leading the long-range planning process for a $765 million building maintenance report, and negotiating a ground-breaking contract with the National Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers Local 1201.
Burns Thompson earned her Bachelor's Degree from Dartmouth College, her MBA from Harvard Business School, and her Master’s and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
