The Practitioner-Scholar: The PennCLO Podcast

Dr. Sharon Ravitch is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Ravitch’s research, advising, teaching, and learning design integrate human and organizational development, psychology, anthropology, leadership, management, and organizational theory. Ravitch is a GIAN Scholar of the Government of India and Fulbright Specialist. Ravitch is a global leadership and organizational diagnostics expert working with leaders, teams, and organizations to cultivate organizational sensemaking practices for cultural excellence. She teaches and coaches executives across sectors and global contexts, designing and conducting leadership development with global leaders at the Wharton Business School’s Executive Education hub and the Yale School of Management. Ravitch’s approach to sustainable, assets-based organizational development and applied research is grounded in her decades-long experience serving as a senior advisor to global executives, leaders, and policymakers across government, corporate, non-profit, and non-governmental sectors working to drive sustainable change at the individual, community, state, and national levels. Dr. Ravitch has published nine books on leadership and qualitative methods including: Leaders as Architects of Change: Designing Organizations for Connection and Resilience in Times of Uncertainty (2026); Leadership Mindsets for Adaptive Change: The Flux 5 (2023); Flux Leadership: Real-Time Inquiry for Humanizing Educational Change (2022); Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological (2021/2016); Applied Research for Sustainable Change: A Guide for Education Leaders (2019); Reason and Rigor: How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research (2017/2012); Matters of Interpretation: Reciprocal Transformation in Therapeutic and Developmental Relationships with Youth (1998). Her two current books focus on humanizing AI in organizations and systems. Ravitch earned two master’s degrees from Harvard University in Human Development and Psychology, mentored by Dr. Carol Gilligan, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in anthropology and education

Dr. Jess Jones is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Penn Chief Learning Officer (Penn CLO) doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. A graduate of the program herself, she previously served as its academic director of onboarding and as contributing faculty. Today she leads program strategy, the student experience, and curriculum innovation for executive doctoral learners. Her teaching and scholarship center on leadership development, psychological safety, organizational learning, and executive education. Her dissertation examined psychological safety and power dynamics in business-to-business healthcare sales, and her current research explores how people create psychologically safe environments without relying on positional authority. She has published and presented on leadership, inclusion, emotional intelligence, and organizational transformation for both academic and practitioner audiences. Dr. Jones brings more than 20 years of executive leadership and consulting experience in professional services to her work, including a role as chief operating officer of a firm's Leadership Services Division. She has guided healthcare organizations and academic medical centers across the United States through organizational transformation, leadership development, change management, and strategic growth. She is also a trained executive coach and a certified Prosci ADKAR change management practitioner.

Dr. Raghu Krishnamoorthy is a scholar-practitioner whose 40-year career spans corporate HR leadership and doctoral education. From 2022 to 2026 he was Senior Fellow and Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Chief Learning Officer (PennCLO) doctoral program. There he shaped the curriculum, led faculty and admissions, and chaired dissertations on leadership, learning, and the future of work. He has also taught at Wharton and been guest faculty at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Yale, and Columbia. Before moving into academia, Raghu spent 25 years at General Electric, with HR roles in India, Hong Kong, London, and the United States. He was CHRO of GE Aviation, Chief Talent and Learning Officer at Crotonville, GE's leadership institute, and CHRO of GE Healthcare. He then became Chief Human Resources Officer of GE, leading HR for a $120 billion company with an HR organization of 4,000 people. Earlier in his career he held HR roles at American Express Bank, Modi-Xerox, and Escorts in India. His research looks at the future of work, the workplace, and the worker. His doctoral dissertation, on how leader behaviors affect employee engagement in virtual work, was awarded distinction, and his research won the Academy of Business Research's Best Paper Award in 2020. He writes often for Harvard Business Review and co-edited Leaders as Architects of Change (Routledge, 2026) with Sharon Ravitch. Raghu has advised and consulted with several organizations, including Boeing, Kraft Heinz, Tech Mahindra, Takeda, and the Tata Group. He sits on the board of IIM Ahmedabad's Ashank Desai Center for Learning and Organizational Development. He holds an Ed.D. and M.S.Ed. from Penn and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and was a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow under the Fulbright program.