William Rapp

Bill has extensive experience in leader development and regularly consults and teaches on leadership to a wide range of corporate and public organizations. Most recently, he taught at Harvard Kennedy School, where he taught in the graduate program, ran the leader development program for active-duty military and intelligence fellows and directed the top-level executive education program for senior managers and executives. As the Commandant (president) of the Army War College, he designed and ran the Army’s strategic leadership program for one to three-star generals, while leading the college in its mission to help senior officers and civilians make the transition from operational to strategic leadership. As the Commandant of Cadets at West Point, he led the leadership and character development programs for the 4400 cadets.  Bill now teaches leadership and does executive coaching for numerous S&P 500 companies.

In over 42 months in combat in three wars, Bill led an engineer company in the first Gulf War, commanded a 3000-soldier brigade in the Iraq War, served as General Petraeus’ personal assistant during the Iraq Surge, and commanded over 17,000 troops supplying all resource needs of the 160,000 U.S. and international force in Afghanistan in 2011-12. He also served as the Army’s senior liaison to the U.S. Congress and controlled all water resources in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest while commanding in the Corps of Engineers. Bill has significant personal history as a team builder and a well-known professional reputation for developing ethical, courageous, and creative leaders. In 2021, he published a book on learning leadership from the history of the early American Revolution.