As a business anthropologist, Derek is an expert in the human factors that drive organizational effectiveness. Derek has worked with Fortune 500 firms, leading hospitals, and major non-profits to design growth strategies that tap into employee motivation.
As a consultant at Wharton Executive Education, he helps global executives develop strategic persuasion skills and manage high-performing teams. He has worked with leading organizations in a wide-range of industries including BP, Bank of America, Oliver Wyman, and the University of Pennsylvania health system, among others.
Derek is also a Lecturer at the Wharton School, where he teaches courses on group dynamics and corporate culture. He is a co-author, along with Mario Moussa and Madeline Boyer, of the forthcoming book: Committed: How Successful Teams Inspire Passion and Performance (Wiley Press). Derek has published extensively and lectured internationally on cultural barriers to organizational change, including speaking engagements at the World Bank, Copenhagen Business School, Stanford University, and the University of São Paulo, among others.
In his former position as an Analyst at the World Resources Institute, Derek studied growth trends for businesses in developing countries and was managing editor of NextBillion.net, a leading blog on private-sector driven development. Having lived and worked extensively in Latin America, he speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and has firsthand experience navigating culturally diverse business environments.
In his free time, Derek is an avid reader and a connoisseur of the underrated Philadelphia food scene. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.
