Bio
Benjamin Dean earned a Ph.D. in organizational leadership, specializing in organizational development applied to international and intercultural contexts. His certifications include Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), awarded by the Human Resources Certification Institute. He also has many years of operational experience gained in senior organizational leadership positions. He has also acquired extensive global experience in business management education, as well as in corporate coaching, results-oriented training, organizational development, and multicultural team-building.
Dr. Dean is also a licensed attorney and certified mediator. He acquired more than sixteen years of professional experience in business law and civil litigation, including in the private and public sectors, serving corporate and government clients and not-for-profit organizations. He practiced law in Raleigh, North Carolina for ten years, providing legal and operational counsel to corporate executives and managers, including major health care and insurance companies.
He also gained significant professional and leadership experience serving in the public sector. As an attorney, he served on the White House staff in the role of Assistant Counsel to the President. He regularly met with individuals selected as prospective presidential appointees to provide counsel and advice. He also met with various members of Congress to conduct one-on-one briefings.
Dr. Dean has acquired broad international experience including on-site work in more than thirty countries, engaging directly with key organizational and policy leaders in more than twenty of those countries. He has also lived in France and in Italy. From 2003 to 2011, he worked for various private international humanitarian organizations. In 2010, he planned and organized an international leadership conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Prior to that, he served as the Director of Global Partnerships, for an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Orlando, Florida, launching and overseeing strategic partnerships in thirteen developing countries.
He has also been certified through a private consulting group and provides organizational leaders and their teams with coaching and training on team development and leadership effectiveness. He has engaged in one-on-one counseling and practical assistance to executives and senior leaders within major institutional and corporate clients.
He acquired extensive practical in leadership and organizational skills as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. He served on active duty in line units, where he qualified as an Army Ranger and parachutist, and, after completing law school on a Department of Defense fellowship, he served in The Judge Advocate General’s Corps, providing legal counsel and organizational advice to senior military officers and government officials.
He founded and directed the Business and Organizational Leadership program at Columbia International University, a private university in Columbia, South Carolina. He also taught masters level graduate courses as an adjunct professor in the School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship at Regent University in Virginia.
Dr. Dean is a full professor at The Citadel, a public university in Charleston, South Carolina, where he currently holds the position of Head of the Department of Leadership Studies. He oversees graduate and undergraduate programs in leadership and is jointly appointed as a professor of business. His professional memberships include the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), the International Leadership Association (ILA), the Association of Leadership Educators, and the Academy of Management (AOM).
Degrees
- Ph.D., Regent University
- LLM, The Judge Advocate General’s School
- J.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill