Mission & History

Our Mission

The Center for Innovative Leadership aims to advance knowledge and build capacity for innovative leadership in modern organizations. Housed at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, the Center is a hub for new ideas and insights on leadership, combining faculty-led research, student-facing programming, and community-focused impact.

Our History

Advancing knowledge and developing effective leaders have long been core goals of the Carey Business School, and moreover are evident throughout the research efforts and student programming across all of Johns Hopkins University. At Carey, programs for student leadership development and coaching were launched alongside the school’s new full-time degree programs when the school was named and founded in 2007, while at the same time researchers studying leadership in modern organizations were recruited from top business schools across the country to join Carey’s new full-time faculty.

The first roots of CIL can be traced back to activities in the school’s Office of Experiential Learning, where some of the Center’s signature programming, including the Leadership Development Expedition course, were launched by Mike Doyle (then Director for Integrated Learning in the Office of Experiential Learning) and Chris Myers. Through additional faculty and staff collaborations, a variety of other programs and opportunities for students to engage with leadership research were developed and offered as co-curricular experiences.

In 2020, facing the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Doyle and Myers began discussions with senior leaders at the Carey Business School, including then-Vice Dean for Faculty and Research Valerie Suslow, to launch a new initiative focused on innovative leadership solutions. Recognizing that leadership was at the heart of organizational responses to the kinds of crises and challenges revealed by the pandemic, they sought to centralize existing efforts and expand new opportunities to both expand and disseminate knowledge about how to lead in innovative ways in the new world of work.

In late 2021, Carey Business School Dean Alex Triantis, with approval from Johns Hopkins University leadership, formally announced the launch of the Center for Innovative Leadership to advance knowledge and build capacity for innovative leadership in modern organizations

The Center began formal programming in 2022, and since then has expanded its offerings to include several signature student experiences, including the CIL Fellows program, the MBA Leadership Challenge, and the Leadership Development Expedition courses. The Center has also convened a group of Core Faculty and Affiliates who advance the science and practice of leadership, sharing their expertise in a range of media articles and outlets, and working directly with industry as thought leaders on the challenges facing modern organizations.