Dennis F. Hightower

Dennis F. Hightower's Key Accomplishments Include . . .
Dennis F. Hightower is a retired business executive with over 30 years of strategic management consulting, operational planning, strategic planning, and international management experience. 

Previously, Hightower was a Professor of Management at Harvard Business School, from which he received his MBA degree in 1974.  As a member of the HBS faculty from 1996 to 2000, he focused on issues of leadership, managing change, building emerging markets, and global management from the perspective of the general manager. He taught in the first year MBA Program and in senior executive programs in South Africa and in the Middle East to train future leaders of those regions.

From 1987 to 1996, Mr. Hightower was a senior executive of The Walt Disney Company, where he served as president of Walt Disney Television & Communications, president of Consumer Products, Europe/Middle East and Africa, executive vice president of Consumer Products, Europe/Middle East, senior vice president of Consumer Products, Europe and vice president of Consumer Products, Europe. Until March 2001, he was Chief Executive Officer of Europe Online Networks, S.A., a privately-held Luxembourg-based broadband interactive entertainment company.

Prior to entering the private sector, Mr. Hightower served in the U.S. Army for eight years, where he rose to the rank of major and was awarded decorations for meritorious achievement and valor.

Mr. Hightower holds an M.B.A. degree from the Harvard Business School and a B.S. degree from Howard University. He received the Alumni Achievement Award in Business from Howard University in 1986, the Alumni Achievement Award from Harvard Business School in 1992, and the U.S. Department of Commerce Pioneer Award in 1996.

He is a former member of the board of directors of Accenture Ltd.; Domino’s, Inc.; Northwest Airlines, Inc.; and The TJX Companies, Inc.; and is a trustee of Casey Family Programs, and a founding member of the Ron Brown Scholar Program Selection Committee. Previously, he served as a board member of The Gillette Company and Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council and the Board of Visitors at Harvard Business School, as Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs at Morehouse College, and is a Trustee Emeritus of Howard University and current board member of Brown Capital Management.

More About Dennis Hightower…
Dennis F. Hightower was once called "the Colin Powell of corporate America," referring to his high-profile success with the Walt Disney Company. Starting in 1987, Hightower was a key player at Disney, first as the entertainment company's director of consumer products for Europe, Africa, and Asia, and later as president of the important Television and Telecommunications division. He presided over an unprecedented boom in products sales overseas and helped to prepare the Disney Company for a future when interactive entertainment and other content will be available over telephone lines. For Hightower, the years at Disney form only a part of a distinguished career in business.

A native of Washington, D.C., Hightower graduated from McKinley High School when he was only 16. He entered Howard University the same year, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1962. What followed was not a swift rise through the corporate structure, but rather a long period of military service including Vietnam, where he was elevated to the rank of major after having earned numerous medals--including the Purple Heart. Hightower was an Army Ranger and senior parachutist whose commendations included two Bronze Stars. He left the service in 1970 and returned to the private sector, taking a job with the Xerox Corporation's research and engineering group.

Hightower credits his career in the Army, where he attained the rank of major at age 27, with teaching him the nuances of leadership. "As MBAs, we tend to become quite enamored with the processes of planning, analyzing, and making financial projections," he observes. "But in the final analysis, none of that can happen if you don't have the right people. As an officer, I had to know how to get things done through others by selecting them properly, trusting them, allowing them to do what they were best at, and providing the correct amount of push and pull," Hightower asserts.

He put those lessons to work after leaving the military and earning his MBA when he embarked on a business career that included stints as a McKinsey consultant, a general manager at GE, president of Disney's Europe/Middle East/Africa consumer products division, and president of Disney's global television and telecommunications businesses.

As head of Disney’s Consumer Products based in Paris, his responsibilities included book and magazine publishing, character merchandise licensing, children’s records and music, computer software, film promotion and television sponsorship, as well as management of the 16 Consumer Products subsidiaries, offices and joint ventures throughout the region.  Hightower also led Disney’s entry into Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and post-apartheid South Africa.

Dennis retired as a senior executive of The Walt Disney Company in 1996, having served as President of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications, then Disney’s largest division measured by revenues and operating income; and as President of Disney Consumer Products – Europe, Middle East and Africa.  In his last executive position with Disney, Hightower managed worldwide production, marketing and distribution of Disney network TV and TV animation, syndication and pay TV, home video, and interactive entertainment and Disney’s operational support to the Americast joint venture with its four telephone company partners.

Featured in Fortune, Black Enterprise, Ebony, and a host of other publications, Hightower is the recipient of numerous awards, including the US Department of Commerce Pioneer Award, the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award, an honorary doctorate degree from Howard University and the Howard University Alumni Award for Distinguished Postgraduate Achievement in Business.  He is listed in “Who’s Who in the World” and other reference publications. Hightower is a guest lecturer at professional management conferences and business schools throughout the world.

• Leadership
• Globalization
• Emerging Markets
• Strategic Planning
• International Management
• Global Marketing