Ruth Gotian is a globally recognised expert in mentorship, leadership development, and peak performance. She was formerly the Chief Learning Officer and Associate Professor of Education at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she spent decades shaping how high achievers learn, lead, and succeed. Her career spans healthcare, education, finance, and organisational development, beginning with early roles at Cornell University Medical College, SUNY Stony Brook, and Bank Leumi Le Israel. Over time, she progressed into senior leadership roles, including Assistant Dean for Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine, alongside academic appointments that reflect her deep commitment to evidence-based learning.
Dr Gotian’s influence sits at the intersection of research and real-world impact. She has advised senior leaders across medicine, academia, and government, including serving on the Advisory Committee to the Deputy Director for Intramural Research at the National Institutes of Health. She has been a Board Member of the American Physician Scientist Association and held editorial and steering roles with the Association of American Medical Colleges and the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Her work has been recognised with honours such as the Bert I. Shapiro Award for outstanding national contributions to MD-PhD training, the Thinkers50 Radar Award, and inclusion in the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches list.
A prolific author and contributor, Dr Gotian writes extensively on optimising success. She is the author of The Success Factor and co-author of The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring and Mentoring in Healthcare: The Definitive Guide to Cultivating Individual & Organisational Success. Her insights regularly appear in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Psychology Today, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2023, she delivered the TEDx talk The Success Factor: Developing the Mindsets of High Achievers, drawing on research with Nobel Prize winners, astronauts, Olympic athletes, and NBA champions to identify the habits that consistently drive excellence.
As a keynote speaker, Dr Gotian is hired for her rare ability to translate elite research into practical, human advice that resonates across industries. Organisations book her to help leaders build mentoring cultures, develop high-performance mindsets, and retain top talent in complex environments. Her talks combine academic rigour with relatable storytelling, grounded in real examples, such as how structured mentoring transformed outcomes within a major academic medical centre. Audiences leave with clear frameworks they can apply immediately, making her a trusted choice for conferences, leadership programmes, and executive off-sites worldwide.
