Nicholas Pearce, Ph.D.

A scholar, speaker, entrepreneur, and pastor, Dr. Nicholas Pearce (@napphd) serves as an award-winning Clinical Associate Professor of Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and as the founder and chief executive officer of The Vocati Group, a boutique global executive advisory firm, and assistant pastor of Chicago’s historic, 12,000-member Apostolic Church of God. A leading expert on values-driven leadership, Dr. Pearce is the author of The Purpose Path: A Guide to Pursuing Your Authentic Life’s Work (St. Martin’s Press, April 2019) and has served as a trusted strategic adviser, executive coach, and keynote speaker for corporations, social impact organizations, governments, and communities of faith on six continents, including 7-Eleven, Allstate Foundation, Archdiocese of Chicago, BP, Capital Group, Chicago Public Schools, The Episcopal Church, Facebook, FMC, Google, Hearst, JPMorgan Chase & Co., KPMG, McDonald’s, NASA, Nike, Northern Trust, Ronald McDonald House Charities, Surge Institute, Teach for America, United States Department of State, and United States Olympic Committee.

Dr. Pearce is deeply committed to civic engagement and philanthropy, serving as a trustee of the Field Foundation, Chicago Children’s Museum, Fuller Theological Seminary, McCormick Theological Seminary, and Seminary Co-Op Bookstores.

He has been a Fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago since 2015 and has also been named one of Chicago’s 40 Game Changers (under 40) by WVON/Ariel Investments, a Galbraith Scholar by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a Public Voices Faculty Fellow by The OpEd Project, and Kellogg’s MSMS Professor of the Year (2015). He and his award-winning work have been featured in global media outlets including The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Crain’s Chicago Business, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Marketplace, MSNBC, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, UrbanFaith.com, and The Washington Post.


Dr. Pearce holds the Ph.D. in Management & Organizations from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the S.B. in Chemical Engineering & Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a concentration in Religious Studies earned in conjunction with Harvard Divinity School.