Scott DeRue
Faculty Co-Director

D. Scott DeRue serves as co-director of the Ross Leadership Initiative (RLI) in the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business, and faculty director for Ross Executive Education’s Emerging Leaders Program.

Scott was named by Poets & Quants and CNN/Fortune as one of the top 40 business school professors under the age of 40. He conducts research and teaches in the areas of leadership and team development, with a particular focus on how leaders and teams learn, adapt, and develop in complex and dynamic environments. His award-winning research has been published in numerous books and research journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, Research in Organizational Behavior, Leadership Quarterly, and Human Resource Management Journal. His work often is featured in such media outlets as Bloomberg, Businessweek, Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Prior to joining the Michigan Ross faculty, Scott served in leadership positions at the Monitor Group and Hinckley Yacht Co. He received his Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his PhD in management from Michigan State University.

Gretchen Spreitzer
Faculty Co-Director

Gretchen Spreitzer serves as co-director of the Ross Leadership Initiative (RLI) in the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. She joined the Michigan Ross faculty in 2001 after spending nine years on the faculty at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. She also was a visiting professor at the Australian School of Business in Sydney in 2008.

Gretchen’s research focuses on leadership development and employee empowerment, particularly within a context of organizational change and decline. Her most recent research examines how leaders can enable thriving for themselves and their organizations. This is part of a new movement in the field of organizational behavior, known as positive organizational scholarship.

Gretchen currently teaches an elective course on leadership and change and is a core faculty member in the Multidisciplinary Action Project (MAP) Program. She teaches in a variety of executive education programs, including Leading the Positive Organization, Management of Managers, and Emerging Leaders.

Gretchen has been awarded the Western Academy of Management’s Ascendant Scholar award for early career contributions, the JMI Distinguished Scholar Award, and the Martin Trailblazer award in conjunction with the positive organizational scholarship faculty at Michigan.

Brian Flanagan
Managing Director

Brian Flanagan is managing director of the Ross Leadership Initiative (RLI) in the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. His work applies cutting-edge leadership research to development programs for students.

Immediately prior to joining RLI, Brian served at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) as associate director of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, program director of the Cook Leadership Academy, and adjunct professor in the School of Public, Nonprofit, and Health Administration.

During his nine years at Grand Valley, Brian founded the Wheelhouse Talks and Leadership University, an online forum where students work with faculty mentors to plan and showcase their growth as leaders. He was responsible for the co-curricular leadership development of fellows in the Cook Leadership Academy and full-time MBA students in GVSU’s Seidman College of Business. His Leadership Dynamics course engaged students with modern classics — from Machiavelli to Freud to Arendt — as well as post-modern insights emerging from the social, natural, and formal sciences.

Brian holds a Master of Public Administration from Grand Valley State University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame.

Petra Alsoofy
Program Coordinator for BBA Student Initiatives, RLI

Petra Alsoofy is BBA program coordinator of the Ross Leadership Initiative (RLI) in the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

Prior to joining RLI, Petra worked as a team leader with T.E.A.M. 21 at Newhall Middle School in Wyoming, Mich. She also served on the board of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute, where she was integral to developing and planning the 2012 Year of Interfaith Understanding in nearby Grand Rapids.

Petra has expertise at the intersection of religion and politics. She gives talks in churches and schools on Islam, American Muslims, interfaith relations, politics, and the Middle East. She has participated in conferences and speaker series, including: “Contemporary Research in Arab American Studies;” “Ask Gleaves Leadership Seminars;” and “My Name is Asher Lev,” a conference that responded to a novel by Chaim Potok.

Petra holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Grand Valley State University. There she served as vice president of the Cook Leadership Academy and helped develop Leadership University.