John Sumanth, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Wake Forest University

John Sumanth is the James Farr Fellow and Associate Professor of Management at the Wake Forest University School of Business. His research focuses on issues of employee communication (voice/feedback/whistleblowing), leadership/trust, and status. To date, his research has appeared in several of the premier management/applied psychology journals in the field (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Business Ethics). In addition, his research has been highlighted in The Wall Street Journal and Business News Daily. John is a member of the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior (OB) and Research Methods (RM) Divisions, the Association for Psychological Science (APS), and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and has presented his work at the annual Academy of Management, SIOP, Wharton OB Junior Faculty and INFORMS conferences.

Prior to academia, John spent nearly a decade working in several high-profile strategic planning, marketing, and R&D positions for Fortune 1000 multi-national firms in the insurance, global tourism (cruise) and fast food industries. John is an award-winning teacher and has extensive corporate consulting experience, including coaching, teaching and mentoring assistant coaches and student-athletes (e.g., Wake Forest Athletics), senior-level executives (e.g., ExxonMobil, Royal Caribbean, Wells Fargo, Huber Engineered Woods) and top US military officers and government leaders (e.g., Army, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations, Veterans Affairs). John holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, an MBA in Marketing and Management from the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering (cum laude) from the University of Miami. He is a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key, Tau Beta Pi and Iron Arrow, the University of Miami’s highest honor.