Description of Research Expertise

Areas of Expertise

Applied adult learning
Organizational talent management
Leadership development
Change management

Professional Biography

Dr. Betof joined GSE as a Senior Fellow in the summer of 2007. Dr. Betof devotes much of his time to the Executive Program in Work-Based Learning Leadership.

Most recently, Dr. Betof was Vice President, Talent Management and Chief Learning Officer at Becton, Dickinson, & Co. (BD). He joined BD in 1997 and had worldwide responsibility for talent management and learning processes. Dr. Betof also developed BD’s senior-most leadership and career development programs and has taught dozens of programs in more than 20 countries.

From 1993-97 Dr. Betof was Senior Vice President of Manchester Consulting, where he created the Newly Appointed Leader Coaching process and co-led the leadership coaching practice. In this capacity, he also served as the executive coach and consultant in organizational change leadership for dozens of executives.

In 1992, Dr. Betof was the Executive on Loan to the New Jersey Governor’s Commission on Quality Education, which was charged with making recommendations to improve public education in the state. This experience provided unique opportunities to work with nationally renowned educational, governmental, public policy, health, legal, and financial leaders who helped shape the commission’s recommendations on education and funding reform.

During the first ten years of his career, Dr. Betof taught, coached, and held several educational leadership positions in urban, suburban, and not-for-profit settings. In 1974, he established a public alternative school for troubled, resistant, and apathetic students. For several years, Dr. Betof served as program director for an educational consulting group headquartered in Philadelphia. His work centered primarily in the areas of active, cooperative, and personalized curriculum development and teacher effectiveness. Training educators to use active learning and instructional design techniques that fully engage learners of all ages has been an area of focus throughout his career.

Dr. Betof has held adjunct faculty appointments at Penn State University, Rutgers, and Temple University. He has also served as a visiting lecturer in high performance leadership for second year MBA students at Columbia School of Business. Dr. Betof began a three-year term in January 2004 as a member of the American Society for Training and Development’s (ASTD) Board of Directors.