About Kelly Ottman

Dr. C. Kelly Ottman is an award-winning professor, executive coach, consultant and scholar with more than 25 years of experience developing leaders. A former healthcare executive, she brings expertise grounded in a prestigious two-year executive development fellowship and a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Adult Education from UW–Madison.

Dr. Ottman has taught undergraduate, graduate, and Executive MBA courses, with guest teaching assignments in China, Germany, and India. She has won international and university teaching awards. She developed and led the MSOE Doing Business with China Program (2009–2019), partnering with more than 25 corporations locally and in China. The signature of the program was Servant Leadership Library Projects throughout rural China.

As an executive coach and consultant, Dr. Ottman engages with local, national, and global organizations and boards. Her clients range widely—from Fortune 500 executives to steel industry leaders and even executive nuns. She works with multigenerational family-held companies to promote leadership/team development and succession planning. In her consulting, she focuses on organizational culture, engagement and change management. She has extensive global experience, with a particular focus on Asia, especially China and India. In recent years, she has worked with top university owners and leaders across India focused on leadership development and engagement. She also has expertise developing leaders wholistically who come from technical backgrounds.

With a passion for service and a commitment to developing women leaders, she currently serves as the Volunteer Executive Leadership Coach Coordinator for the WE Empower United Nations SDG Challenge and the International Leadership Association. She also serves on the Girl Scouts of Southeastern Wisconsin Board and is Co-Chair of the Milwaukee Women Inc. Program Committee. She has extensive prior board experience.

Aligned with servant leadership, she has been transformed through coordinating and engaging in local and international service projects. These experiences have taken her to China, Ghana, Mexico, Panama, and Vietnam. She also hosts international medical students in her home.

As a scholar, she has completed two major studies supported by MSOE Protracted Leave (Research Sabbatical): (1) understandings of leadership by executives in China, including government, state-owned enterprise, and multinational leaders (a longitudinal study); and (2) understandings of executive leaders and retirement. She regularly presents at international conferences and publishes on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. As a consultant, she applies her research skills to organizations seeking to better understand corporate culture and promote employee engagement, particularly during leadership transitions, mergers, and acquisitions. She is a sought-after keynote speaker for corporations and professional organizations.