Hess began his business career over 20 years ago as a senior executive at Warburg Paribas Becker, and served as a senior executive at Boettcher & Company, the Robert M. Bass Group andArthur Andersen.[2]
Hess entered academia in 2002 as an adjunct professor of Organization and Management at the Goizueta School of Business atEmory University, where he was the founder and executive director ofThe Center for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Growth andThe Values-Based Leadership Institute. Hess then created theGoizueta Leadership Academy, which was named the #1 MBA Leadership Program byBusiness Week in 2004.[3]
In 2007, Hess joined the faculty of the Darden Business School as Professor of Business Administration and the first Batten Executive-in-Residence.[4] He currently teaches in the Darden Business School MBA Programs, and in Executive Education programs, and has taught at IESE (Barcelona) and the Indian School of Business.[5] He has consulted with major public and private companies. Hess' free online two-course MOOCSGrow to Greatness - the challenges of growing a private business - has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people around the globe.[6]
Hess is the author of 12 books, as well as over 100 articles and over 60 Darden cases dealing with growth, innovation and learning cultures, systems and processes.[7][8]
Hess' research has focused on organizational and human high performance. Specific research projects have included:The Organic Growth Index;The Characteristics of Consistent High Organic Growth Public Companies;The Risks of Growth;The Empirical Basis for U.S Growth Beliefs;The Challenges of Scaling a Private Business;Growth and Innovation Systems - Culture and Processes;Learning Systems; andThe Organization of the Future in the Smart Machine Age.[9]
Smart Growth was named a Top 25 business book in 2010 for business owners byInc. Magazine,[10] a Top 10 Business Book for 2010 by theToronto Globe,[11] and was awarded theWachovia Award for Research Excellence.Learn or Die was anAmazon best seller and was awarded theWells Fargo Award for Research Excellence.[12]