Steven Snyder
Biography for Steven Snyder, Ph.D.
Founder and Managing Director of
Snyder Leadership Group
Steven Snyder, Ph.D., founder of Twin Cities-based Snyder Leadership Group, established his organizational consulting firm to provide a resource for organizations and their executives to advance their leadership capabilities and achieve greater success. His notable talent and vast business experience - functional expertise in marketing, product development, finance, and human resources - support his commitment to helping other executives and their organizations reach their peak potential.
After gaining experience in management consulting at Touche Ross & Co. and The Boston Consulting Group, Steven Snyder joined Microsoft when that company was in its infancy. His work there, praised by Founder Bill Gates, secured the relationship with IBM during a crucial stage in Microsoft’s growth and helped shape the history of the personal computer industry.
Promoted as Microsoft’s first business unit general manager, Steven Snyder led the company’s Development Tool business where he introduced organizational and process innovations that have become hallmarks of Microsoft’s strategy. Under his leadership, Snyder’s team blazed new trails of technology innovation, earning them PC Magazine’s prestigious Technical Excellence Award for an unprecedented two years in a row.
After his influential tenure at Microsoft, Steven Snyder earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He applied his multidisciplinary background to initiate innovative software for human resource development at Personnel Decisions International (PDI), a worldwide human resources consulting firm. While at PDI, he honed his knowledge of leadership competency development.
When Internet advancements drew Steven Snyder’s attention, he joined forces with computer scientists from the University of Minnesota to pioneer a groundbreaking technology called “collaborative filtering.” As co-founder and CEO of Net Perceptions, Steven Snyder successfully commercialized this invention to enable the real-time personalized recommendations that have become central to the online shopping experience with Amazon.com, their first customer. This groundbreaking work won Steven Snyder the first-ever World Technology Award for Commerce in 1999 for “contributing to the advance of emerging technologies for the benefit of business and society.”
Today, in addition to his work with Snyder Leadership Group, Steven Snyder teaches business ethics as an adjunct faculty member at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He has also taught Executive MBA classes in Warsaw, Poland. Steven Snyder has been a guest on the ABC-TV “Nightline” program as well as a featured speaker in North America, Europe and Asia. In January 2008, Snyder was selected to deliver the seventeenth JRD Tata Oration on Business Ethics in Jamshedpur, India.
In addition to his psychology degrees, Steven Snyder earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Drexel University and a master’s degree in business administration from the Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. A native of Philadelphia, Steven Snyder currently lives in the Minneapolis area with his wife and child where he pursues an interest in playing jazz piano.
Steven Snyder is actively engaged in philanthropy and community service. The vast majority of the profits earned by Snyder Leadership Group are donated to charities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, as well as his fellowship that supports the psychology program at the University of Minnesota. Steven Snyder also serves on the executive committee at Bet Shalom and is on the board of the Jewish Community Foundation of Minneapolis. He also serves on committees for the Minneapolis Jewish Federation.
His immense talent and vast business experience—functional expertise in marketing, product development, finance, and human resources—support his commitment to helping other executives and their organizations reach their peak potential. Talk to us today to see how Steven’s approach can benefit you.
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