Herman B. ("Dutch") Leonard is Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the George F. Baker, Jr. Professor of Public Sector Management at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In addition, he serves as co-chair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative. He teaches extensively in executive programs at the Business School and the Kennedy School and around the world in the areas of general organizational strategy, governance, performance management, crisis management and leadership, and corporate social responsibility. His work on leadership focuses on innovation, creativity, effective decision-making, and advocacy and persuasion. His current work in leadership and management is focused on the relationship between governance, accountability, and performance, and emphasizes the use of performance management as a tool for enhancing accountability. He has also worked and taught extensively in the area of crisis management and on issues related to corporate social responsibility. He is the co-author Why Was Boston Strong?(2014) and of Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business (2011), co-editor of Managing Crises (2009), the author of Checks Unbalanced: The Quiet Side of Public Spending (1984), of By Choice or By Chance: Tracking the Values in Massachusetts Public Spending (1992), and (annually from 1993 through 1999) of The Federal Budget and the States (an annual report on the geographic distribution of federal spending and taxation).

Professor Leonard is a member of the American Repertory Theatre Board of Trustees, was a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a 1,000,000-member Massachusetts HMO and is a former director of the Hitachi Foundation and of the ACLU of Massachusetts. He was for a decade a member of the board of directors of the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority and of CIVIC Investments, and was a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Performance Enhancement. He has been a financial advisor to the Connecticut Governor's Office of Policy and Management, to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and to the Central Artery-Third Harbor Tunnel Project. Professor Leonard was a member of the Governor's Council on Economic Policy for the State of Alaska, of the Governor's Advisory Council on Infrastructure in Massachusetts, and of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee's Private Sector Advisory Committee on Infrastructure. He served as chairman of the Massachusetts Governor's Task Force on Tuition Prepayment Plans, on the National Academy of Sciences Committees on National Urban Policy and on the Superconducting Supercollider, and on the New York City Comptroller's Debt Management Advisory Committee. In addition to his academic studies and teaching, he has been chief financial officer and chief executive officer of a human services agency and has served as a director of public, non-profit, and private sector organizations.