Insight and Innovation

Dennis J. Cohen, Ph.D

Dennis Cohen is a Senior Consultant with SMG, Inc, a BTS company. leading its Project Leadership Practice. He is also the founder and President of Optimal Performance Network, an SMG global partner. He works with clients to improve business performance by aligning and optimizing their strategic execution process to convert strategy into action. This includes strategy formulation, implementation through project, program and project portfolio management and leadership coaching.

Dennis founded and led both the Management and Executive Leadership and Project Management Practice Areas for SMG, Inc. He has contributed to the design of numerous learning technologies and simulations including the award winning Essentials of Business Leadership, Project Leadership, Business Skills for Project Managers, and Maximizing Project Performance.

Dennis has co-authored a chapter on the politics of project implementation in the book Project Management As If People Mattered by Robert J. Graham. He and Dr. Graham are co-authors of the book, The Project Manager’s MBA and “Beyond Triple Constraints:

Developing a Business Venture Approach to Project Management,” in H. A. Levine, Project Portfolio Management. He has also contributed a chapter on embedding Project Management best practices into organization culture in the book, Creating the Project Office, by Randall L. Englund, Robert J. Graham, and Paul C. Dinsmore.

In addition, Dennis has advised and coached thousands of managers in the areas of business acumen, strategy, leadership and project leadership for many different organizations. Clients include Applied Materials, Intel, Vodafone, The World Bank, GAO of Congress, U.S. Postal Service, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Maersk, Schlumberger, Chevron, Dow, Merck, GSK, Wyeth, Pfizer, Pharmacia, MetLife, The Hartford, Bank of America, HSBC.

Before joining SMG, Dennis was a Research Associate at the Management and Behavioral Science Center of The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a Senior Fellow with the Wharton Center for Applied Research. He has been an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Management for the Wharton School, teaching courses in management and entrepreneurship. Dennis holds a BA and MA from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.