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Richard Phillips’s career has spanned the public and private sectors, and has now led him back to public service, working primarily at Harvard University to help guide business leaders and current students toward a more informed understanding of the foundations of ethical and moral decision making.
In 1997, with degrees from Yale, Cambridge and Georgetown, Richard went to work at the Justice Department, where he served as lead counsel for the United States in constitutional litigation involving sensitive national security and high technology issues. He then served as Senate Judiciary
Committee Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and later to Senator Patrick J. Leahy. While on Senate staff, Mr. Phillips was responsible for advising Senators Kennedy and Leahy on matters involving civil rights, voting rights and voter protection, technology, free trade, intellectual property, and privacy. In 2005, he returned to Philadelphia to become more involved in the family business, Pilot Freight Services. In 2007, Richard took over as CEO of Pilot, a global logistics provider serving many of the world’s largest and most complex corporations and government agencies.
Under Richard’s leadership, Pilot undertook a cultural and ethical turnaround, while its revenue nearly quadrupled to nearly $1 billion and earnings grew almost thirty-fold. In 2012 Richard was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year for the Philadelphia Region. In 2016, Richard led the sale of Pilot to a private equity consortium.
In 2023, Richard accepted a fellowship at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, where he has focused his work on broader questions of morality, ethics and spirituality in our modern world. He currently teaches “The Spiritual Lives of Leaders,” at the Harvard Business School and is a frequent lecturer at Harvard Law School on Moral Leadership. He is a member of the Leadership Council of the Aspen Institute, where he focuses his work on implementing the Institute’s strategic plan. He has spoken to various groups of business, government and community leaders around the world on the intersection of meaning, purpose, and leadership.
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