Faculty

Paul Kinsinger is an executive educator and Managing Consultant of the Thunderbird Learning Consulting Network (TLCN) at Thunderbird School of Global Management. He helps executives and organizations understand the challenges and opportunities posed by megatrends and the benefits of incisive market and competitive analysis. With deep and broad experience and expertise over two careers, Paul specializes in how to think strategically and drive the agile decision-making that will prevail in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business world. His current areas of endeavor include strategic approaches for success in the post-recession, “two-speed” global recovery, with a focus on winning in emerging markets, mastering the return of a “Red Ocean” competitive environment in low-growth developed markets, and competing against—or collaborating with—the newly emerging global competitors from developing markets. 

Tempered by advanced studies in international affairs and a first career that culminated in senior-level management in the CIA, Paul’s teaching and consulting is grounded in a relentless focus on understanding the impact of external forces through the “outside-in” thinking that few businesses can afford to shortchange anymore. His combination of experience with complex global issues and understanding of today’s business imperatives gives him the ability to make “outside-in’ thinking both tangible and actionable to business executives and organizational leaders seeking to successfully navigate increasingly dynamic opportunities and challenges. With executive-level experience ranging from Kings, Presidents, Prime Ministers, cabinet members, senators and congressional representatives, generals and admirals, as well to business leaders, Paul knows how to challenge conventional wisdom, to provoke new thinking, to provide discreet counsel, and “to speak truth to power”—as captured by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who praised Paul’s frankness and candor.

Professor Kinsinger has delivered to corporate clients at various executive levels and across several industries, ranging from high-tech, to defense, energy and construction, shipping, agriculture, and the public sector. His extensive Middle East expertise has led to his appointment as academic director for executive education programs for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior and the Islamic Development Bank, as well as co-AD for a new program with one of the most prestigious companies in Saudi Arabia. With an “in-the-trenches” mindset, Paul teaches in a highly applied, hands-on manner designed to allow students and executives to experience, on their own or in teams, the use of tools and methods that emanate from the best of thought leadership—be it from business, academia, consultancies, or from government. Having led students and executives through nearly 200 project-oriented learning engagements, Paul has deep experience in facilitating learning and in coaching teams to develop outcomes. An avid and broad reader himself, Paul is also skilled at knowing how to help busy executives leverage disparate data points and perspectives in the pursuit of sounder strategic thinking and decision-making.

Paul holds a B. A. from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master’s Degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. Currently on the Board of Directors for the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), he has written extensively on intelligence and business strategy for the Thunderbird International Business Review, the Frost & Sullivan Quarterly, Thunderbird Magazine, and Competitive Intelligence Magazine. A 2008 recipient of a Frost & Sullivan’s Lifetime Achievement Award for competitive intelligence, Paul was also the subject of a short feature in the Economist online on teaching CI. He has also won several teaching awards from Thunderbird. He has also frequently been called upon by local and national media to comment on events in the Middle East, and has served on panels for Frost & Sullivan’s annual Growth, Innovation, and Leadership conferences with regard to the Middle East.