Robert Steven Kaplan

Robert Steven Kaplan

President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Robert S. Kaplan is president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Previously, he was the Senior Associate Dean for External Relations and Martin Marshall Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also co-chairman of Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, a global venture philanthropy firm, as well as chairman and a founding partner of Indaba Capital Management. Before joining Harvard in 2005, Kaplan was vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group with responsibilities for Global Investment Banking and Investment Management.

He has written several books on leadership and goal development, including 'What You're Really Meant To Do: A Road Map For Reaching Your Unique Potential' published by Harvard Business Review Press. You can read his most recent essay here.

3 min
Leadership is accessible to each of us—today. It requires a process of hard work, willingness to ask questions, and openness to learning.
1 min
Contrary to popular belief, leadership really can be learned.
13 min
Over a 22-year career at Goldman Sachs, Robert S. Kaplan had the opportunity to run various businesses and to work with or coach numerous business leaders. He says that successful leadership is less often about having all the answers—and more often about asking the right questions. In Part 1 of The Leadership Challenge, Kaplan explores three strategic key questions that leaders need to ask themselves.
2 min
Make sure whatever job you pick has enough intrinsic motivators in it that you can enjoy it long enough to get to your goal.
2 min
When it comes to improving your life and your career, it is essential to be able to properly evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.
3 min
Robert Kaplan argues that the keys to advancement in your career is taking risks, or “playing the game with some degree of abandon.”
3 min
Robert Kaplan advises people to write down the story of their failures in order to make themselves aware of them.