Tojo Thatchenkery

Tojo Thatchenkery is a professor and director of the Organization Development and Knowledge Management program in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

He is an internationally known speaker, consultant, and educator and is featured as one of the leading change thinkers in the Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. He is also a member of the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science and the Taos Institute.

Thatchenkery’s research has been funded by agencies such as the United States National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, and the U.S. Postal Service. He is the author of more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles. One of them, Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn was a Harvard Business Review recommended book. In another book, Making the Invisible Visible, Thatchenkery introduced the concept of quiet leadership as a key driver for innovation in organizations. He has also written books on appreciative inquiry, knowledge management, sustainable development, social capital, organizational development, postmodernism, and information technology and economic development.

Thatchenkery is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences and the Journal of Organizational Change Management and is the past program chair of the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management. He has more than 25 years of experience in teaching at various public policy, MBA, organization development, and executive development programs in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. He founded the Organizational Learning Laboratory at the George W. Johnson Learning Center and served as its director from 1995 to 2000. During this time, the facility was featured as one of the leading laboratories for organizational learning and knowledge management by the Academy of Management and the Project Management Journal, and served clients such as Fannie Mae.

Thatchenkery has extensive consulting experience in diversity and inclusion, knowledge management, change management, leadership development, and organization design and strategy. Past and current clients include the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, USDA, EPA, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Treasury, USPS OIG,  IBM, Fannie Mae, Booz Allen, PNC Bank, Alcatel Lucent, General Mills, 3M, British Petroleum, Magnetrol, Nokian Tyres, Akbank (Turkey), and the Tata Consulting Services (India). He has published in journals such as the Harvard Business Review.

He has a PhD from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. 

View Tojo Thatchenkery's CV

Areas of Research

• Diversity and Inclusion
• Appreciative Intelligence
• Appreciative Inquiry and Innovation
• Change Management and Organizational Development
• Entrepreneurship
• Gender
• Industrial Organization
• Knowledge Management
• Leadership
• Nonprofit Management
• Organizations
• Public Administration
• Public Management
• Race and Ethnicity
• South Asia