Founder and President Emeritus of Management Systems International, Larry Cooley has more than 40 years’ experience in the fields of strategic management, public sector reform and international development. Currently serving as Board Chair of the Society for International Development and of World Learning, he is the author or co-author of widely used methodologies for managing policy change, scaling innovation, entrepreneurship development and results-based management. Mr. Cooley has served as project director or principal investigator for numerous high-visibility domestic and international public management initiatives, as a facilitator for three Cabinet-level working groups in the United States, and as an advisor to the leaders of more than a dozen governments and international agencies.

Larry is an elected Fellow and Board Member of the National Academy of Public Administration, a non-resident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, and a Trustee or Advisory Board member for a wide range of foundations, non-profit organizations, and global initiatives. He was Chairperson of the Development Management Network of the American Society of Public Administration for 15 years and is a past recipient of the Society’s National Award for Training Excellence. He is also a founder and co-curator of a global community of practice on scaling up development outcomes.

Prior to establishing MSI in 1981, Mr. Cooley worked for the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, Practical Concepts Incorporated, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Colgate University and participant in the International Honors Program, and he holds advanced degrees from Columbia University (Economics), Princeton University (Public Policy) and the Cranfield Institute of Technology in the UK (Management).

Read Larry Cooley’s blog on Scaling Up, “Innovating is the Easy Part.”