Thor Wasbotten

Biography

Thor Wasbotten is executive director of the Edward C. Kennedy Center for Business Ethics at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is responsible for vision and strategic direction, budget, fundraising and programming for the Center. In addition, he serves as a professor of practice in the Jack C. Massey College of Business and as special assistant to the provost leading key initiatives that will serve both campus and the Nashville and Middle Tennessee communities.

Wasbotten served the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University as managing director for six years. During that time, he played a key role in Center-wide strategy, budget, personnel planning and decision making.

 He has more than twenty years of leadership experience in higher education and a decade in industry, primarily in media and as an entrepreneur. He served as director of Community Engagement in the College of Communication and Information and director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (renamed Media and Journalism) at Kent State University. He taught courses in both the School of Media and Journalism and the School for Emerging Media and Technology, including advanced multimedia courses, media ethics and ethics of AI and emerging media and technology. He also served as assistant dean and senior lecturer in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. In industry, he served as news director at the ABC-television affiliate in Tucson, Arizona, and as station manager and founding news director at the FOX-television affiliate in Boise, Idaho. He also helped start Blue Heron Research Partners, a company that provides qualitative due diligence to institutional investors focusing on leadership.