Jason Wingard
Jason Wingard (born 1971) is an American academic and executive. He is the twelfth president of Temple University and the first African-American president in the institution’s 137-year history. He previously served in executive leadership roles at Columbia University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University, as well as corporate workforce development at Goldman Sachs. He is the author of four books on the future of work and talent development and a frequent contributor to mainstream media outlets writing about higher education, diversity, leadership and career readiness. Early life and education. Jason  Wingard was born on December 13, 1971, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania at age four. His father was a public school principal and superintendent who attended Temple University for graduate school, and his mother worked in human resources. Wingard is a graduate of Henderson High School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he was a three-varsity sport athlete in basketball, football, and track and field. He was the 1990 high school Pennsylvania state champion in the 300m intermediate hurdles and was later inducted into the Henderson High School Wall of Fame. Wingard received an athletic  scholarship from Stanford University for football and track and field. A football wide receiver, tight end, and outside linebacker, he was a member of the 1992 Pac-10 Co-Champion team (now referred to as the Pac-12 Conference). In track, he competed for Stanford in the 400m hurdles and was named Pac-10 Conference Academic All-American Honorable Mention in 1992. Wingard holds a Bachelor of Arts in sociology with honors from Stanford University, a Master of Arts in education from Emory University, a Master of Education in technology in education from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in education , culture, and society from the University of Pennsylvania. Career. Academic. Wingard was appointed 12th president of Temple University in July 2021, and its first African American president since its founding in 1884. He previously served as Dean of Columbia University's School of Professional Studies, as well as Vice Dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he led the Aresty Institute of Executive Education. Before that, he was Executive Director of the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute (renamed the Stanford Educational Leadership Initiative) at Stanford University. Wingard has taught leadership development courses at Columbia, Stanford and the  Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Wingard has held executive education and leadership training with organizations including Columbia Athletics and LinKS@Wharton. In Columbia's fall semester of 2015, Wingard launched the Talks@Columbia thought leadership series. In 2016, he led a new "Global Human Capital Trends" course that was developed in partnership with Deloitte. Wingard introduced several access initiatives to offer Columbia's education to underserved populations, including the Columbia Girls in STEM Initiative and the Columbia HBCU Fellowship Initiative. Corporate. Wingard served as the Chief Learning Officer at Goldman Sachs where he was responsible for the strategy and implementation  of learning solutions for the firm's global workforce. Since 2004, Wingard has served as President and CEO of The Education Board, Inc., a boutique management consulting firm and was Senior Vice President at ePals, Inc., a provider of school-safe collaborative learning products. Board and leadership positions. Wingard is a co-founder and Board Director of The Education Board Foundation, which provides financial assistance to disadvantaged populations, and arts, education, advocacy, and public service organizations that support those populations. He is co-founder and Board Chair of the Zoeza Institute, which provides mentoring support, advisory services, and transition programming  for foster care youth in Atlanta, GA, New York, NY, and Philadelphia, PA. He is also Co-Founder of the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative. He serves on the Board of Directors of Tides, a philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice, as well as the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York. He sits on the membership committee of CEO Connection,  served as a Director-at-Large on the University Professional and Continuing Education Association's Board of Directors,  and was an Affiliated Faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania’s  Wharton Sports Business Initiative. Wingard was a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He also previously served on the Boards for the National Center for Fathering, United Cerebral Palsy of Philadelphia, White Williams Scholars (now Philadelphia Futures), and served on the Peer Review Council of the Organization Development Journal. Publications. Wingard has published multiple books on professional education and leadership, including The Great Skills Gap: Optimizing Talent for the Future of Work, Learning to Succeed: Rethinking Corporate Education in a World of Unrelenting Change, Learning for Life: How Continuous Education Will Keep Us Competitive in the Global Knowledge Economy, and  Win the Leadership Game: How Companies Can Create Unbeatable Global Teams. His book, Learning to Succeed was named The Washington Post's Leadership Book of the Week in July 2015, listed on Soundview Executive Book Summaries' 30 Best Business Books of 2015, and was chosen as getAbstract's September's Top 3 Reads in 2015. He is a senior contributor for Forbes and has written for or been featured in articles by media outlets including Fortune, Inc., Vanity Fair, and TheStreet. Personal life. Wingard and his wife have five children and reside in Philadelphia. Keynotes and featured talks. Wingard has  been a keynote speaker for corporations, conventions, board retreats, and academic summits. Some recent notable talks include: Media coverage. NPR's "Online Courses Cut Costs, But Do They Dilute Brands" offers Wingard's insights into universities' challenges in offering online courses. "Library Journal"'s "You're a Good Leader, But Are You a Thought Leader?" cites Wingard's definition of thought leadership. In the UK "Financial Times"' piece "Winds of change blow for business schools," Wingard expands on the generational shifts in learning with technology. He has been interviewed by "The Huffington Post" on the changing incorporation of work/life  balance, as well as contributed articles, including "Want Millennials to Stay? Invest in Corporate Learning", "Leadership: Committing to Closing the Workplace Gender Gap," "Building a Talent Pipeline for Girls in STEM", and "Looking Beyond the Trump & Clinton Foundations to New Trends in Philanthropy". Wingard penned an op-ed for Fortune, "What Uber is getting right that other startups aren't," which was cited by Vanity Fair in "Why Uber Won't Be Just a Taxi Company Forever." In "Delta Rolls Out Diversity Training Amid Reports of Passenger Discrimination," Wingard provided insights on corporate training and diversity initiatives for Bloomberg News . Business Insider interviewed Wingard on alternative university credentials. Wingard appeared on Brian Sullivan's Capital Exchange program on CNBC to discuss credentials and competencies needed in the workforce. Wingard's access initiatives at Columbia University have been covered in the press, including "Columbia University partners with HBCUs to fight lack of business diversity" in "The Undefeated", "Columbia and Brooks Brothers Unite To Dress Future Female Changemakers" in "Swaay", a "Columbia Girls in STEM Initiative" segment on Fox 5 NY, "Showing girls the way to careers in STEM" in "The Miami Herald", and "Columbia Girls in STEM Initiative Inspires Young Women  to Achieve in STEM Careers" in "Black Enterprise". Wingard also garnered national media attention as a student athlete when he played for Stanford's football team. Since then, he has attracted significant coverage from outlets including "USA Today", "Black Enterprise", and the "NY Daily News" for his consulting work with professional sports organizations and players. His engagements and activities have included research and analytics on trends and performance in collaboration with the Wharton Sports Business Initiative, as well as the design and delivery of advisory services and training programs related to preparing professional athletes for life after their playing careers —most notably the development of the NFL Business Management and Entrepreneurship Program with colleague Kenneth Shropshire and former player and NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Troy Vincent for football players. As Dean of the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, he also oversees, and teaches students in, one of the world's top ranked Sports Management graduate degree programs and is often solicited for commentary and insights related to strategy, leadership, and best practices in the sports industry. Wingard is featured in an interview with Knowledge@Wharton on "How Companies Should Manage Millennials." He also led an episode of  the Knowledge@Wharton podcast alongside Wharton's Dr. John Percival on "The 'Forward-looking' CFO: Linking Financial Rigor with Leadership." The American Management Association interviewed Wingard for the AMANet Podcast, "Jason Wingard on Keeping Up with Business Education." In 2016, Bloomberg's signature business radio show, The Bloomberg Advantage with Carol Massar and Cory Johnson, featured Wingard as a guest to discuss "Preparing Students for Ever-Changing Work."