About the Author

Brief Biography

Joel spent over 25 years as a manager, executive, and board member in several large organizations.

After his business career, he was asked to join the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania to co-design the Wharton Business School’s first experiential leadership program required of all MBAs.

His book, Political Savvy, has been acclaimed both as a significant leadership tool as well as one of the top 10 Career books of the decade.

He served his country as a Captain in the USAF during the Viet Nam era.

He has 7 university degrees including a Masters in Physics, an MBA, and a Ph.D. from Yale in Organizational Behavior.

Expanded Biography

For over 30 years, Dr. DeLuca has worked globally in the areas of strategic planning processes, organization restructuring, and executive leadership. For eight years, he headed the organizational planning and executive development functions of a fortune top 20 industrial corporation. He then spent four years building and managing the first strategic human resource planning function in one of the world’s largest professional service firms.

As a seasoned business manager, Joel was next invited to join the academic faculty at Wharton, then the nation’s top ranked business school. He co-designed and also taught for four years in the school’s first action learning program for leadership. It was the only course required of all Wharton MBA’s. He then worked with a global automotive company in co-designing two leadership programs that were later awarded world class benchmark status by an external independent rating agency.

For 10 years, Joel was selected by the Academy of Management to review the latest research related to strategic organizational change and entrepreneurship. For 8 years, he served on the advisory board of the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. Dr. DeLuca was named as one of the top Organizational Development consultants in North America and was identified as among 40 of the world’s premier leadership experts asked to contribute their latest work to the book The Many Facets of Leadership (Prentice Hall, 2003). His contribution focused on ‘smart moves’ seen as the practical heart of intelligent risk-taking in ambiguous fast changing environments.

Two of his articles have been selected for industry encyclopedias and another was chosen for a book of best practices in global 21st century business environments. His book, Political Savvy, was named by a leading business publication as a key leadership tool for ethically dealing with organization politics. It was also selected as among the decade’s top career books by one of the nation’s largest newspapers. The book and its seminar have been used in major corporations around the world and in many of the best ranked MBA programs as well as the FBI Leadership Academy.

He was honored to receive a congressional National Leadership Award for his work in the business arena and was then selected to serve on the Presidential Business Commission. Joel was also chosen to represent the United States as part of a delegation that toured the Peoples Republic of China to exchange leadership practices between the two nations.

Joel served his country as a captain in the United States Air Force. A master’s degree in physics, an MBA and a PhD in Organizational behavior from Yale are among his 7 university degrees.

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“On behalf of the Network of Women in Computer Technology, I would like to thank you and Vicki Weiss for a most thorough and informative presentation on the dynamics of power and politics. The way everyone was able to participate was an enjoyable and added bonus. The workshop helped us to understand much better what skills we need to become politically savvy. You were both outstanding and the members of NWCT truly benefited from your presentation.” 

Evelyn Fair – Program Committee
Network of Women in Computer Technology

Gain the proven benefits from the Savvy Advantage™ using various forms of Political Savvy research, books and seminars.

Mastering organizational politics through Political Savvy is a proven ethical leadership approach that any organization and any individual can use to both influence positive change in an organization and achieve career success at the same time; even when negative organizational politics are severe.