Dr. Kim Gower earned her Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2012 after spending 25 years in consulting and sales and as a business owner. Her concentration is Leadership and Organizational Behavior, with a minor in Entrepreneurship, and her dissertation research incorporated the use and misuse of 360 feedback in leadership assessment.
Kim has taught at VCU, Virginia State University, the University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership Studies, and currently teaches Leadership and Organizational Behavior and Leadership and Social Justice in the UMW MBA program, and Leadership Theory and Application, Leadership and Social Justice, and Introduction to Management at the undergraduate level.
She was a candidate for Congress in the 7th District of Virginia in 2017, and is the incoming chair of the International Management Education and Development Division (MED) of the Academy of Management, a division with over 1800 members. Kim has extensive experience consulting with organizations in a full range of areas, including Leadership Development, Team Development, Customer Service, and Process Improvement, particularly in the rapidly changing global landscape.
In her spare time, Kim enjoys backpacking, community advocacy, volunteering in local organizations (particularly Richmond Animal Care and Control), and excessively doting on her five rescue pets, including her two new puppies.