Kathleen L. McGinn
Baker Foundation Professor Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, Emerita
Kathleen L. McGinn is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor McGinn has served in various leadership roles at HBS, including Research Director, Unit Head, Chair of Doctoral Programs, and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Recruiting, Strategy and Promotions. In her research, Professor McGinn investigates gender in employment, studying related questions in households, schools, workplaces and communities internationally. Recent studies reveal the benefits of maternal employment to adult sons and daughters across 29 countries; measure intergenerational investments related to variations in women’s employment in India; explore how social class backgrounds play into women leaders’ narratives; and uncover processes US couples engage in to gradually reallocate household responsibilities.
Professor McGinn advises for-profit and not-for-profit organizations on inclusion and diversity. Before coming to Harvard, Professor McGinn was an Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s Johnson School and taught at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where she received her Ph.D. Prior to her academic career, Professor McGinn was a director of labor relations in the public sector. When her daughter left for college, Professor McGinn and her husband moved to a long-abandoned farm and are (forever) in the process of bringing it to some semblance of its prior self.