Matthew Kohut

Matthew Kohut is a lecturer in the Project Management program at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies. He is also a Founding Partner of KNP Communications, which trains and coaches professionals around the world in speaking effectively. He prepares CEOs, entrepreneurs, ambassadors, and TED speakers to command the room in settings ranging from boardrooms to global television broadcasts. A leading expert in organizational coaching, he designs customized communications training programs for Fortune 500 companies, top-tier business schools, and global nonprofits. 

Mr. Kohut has more than twenty years of experience at the intersection of project management and communication. He has served as a consultant to NASA since 2004 in a variety of capacities, most recently teaching courses in technical presentation skills and cognitive bias mitigation in engineering decision-making. He received NASA’s Special Service Award in 2011. He has also developed project management case study initiatives for the Department of Energy and the Project Management Institute. 

His publications about project management include the award-winning The Smart Mission: NASA’s Lessons for Managing Knowledge, People, and Projects. He also authored Speaking Out: The New Rules of Business Leadership Communication, and co-authored Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential, which has been required reading at business schools including Harvard and Haas. 

Mr. Kohut has served as a Lecturer at George Washington University, and as a Fellow at Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action. He holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.