Larry Kutner has worn many hats during his multifaceted career, including nonprofit leader, psychologist, public health consultant, academic researcher, journalist, entrepreneur, mentor, and sailing instructor.
Larry spent 20 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, where he co-founded and co-directed the HMS/Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Mental Health and Media. While there, he received two $1,000,000+ research grants from the federal government, as well as funding from corporations, foundations, and individuals.
In 2008, the American Psychological Association gave him its award for Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Media Psychology.
Prior to Harvard, he spent seven years as the internationally syndicated “Parent & Child” columnist for the New York Times. An Emmy award-winning television journalist and documentary producer, he also founded and ran a successful health and science communications company. Larry wrote six books on child development (published by William Morrow and Simon & Schuster), and was the “Ask The Expert” columnist for Parents magazine.
He left Harvard to become the executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the largest educational foundation in North America, with 55 employees, assets of $700-million, and an annual budget of $35-million. That foundation focused on helping high-achieving and high-potential adolescents and young adults from low-income families. He significantly reduced staff turnover, developed new programs for at-risk youth, revamped the I.T. infrastructure, and created a gold-standard communications operation that raised the foundation’s profile and established its “brand.”
After a stint as the executive director of Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies, an amalgam of 15 Stanford University programs for children in grades K-12 (including an online high school), Larry returned to working with his wife, Dr. Cheryl K. Olson, as a consultant on issues related to public health and behavioral health.
He served for over 15 years on the advisory board of the Carter Center for Mental Health Journalism at Emory University in Atlanta, and four years on the board of trustees of the Marine Science Institute, a youth education nonprofit (founded in 1970) in Redwood City, CA.
Larry holds an A.B. in psychology from Oberlin College, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota, and trained at the Mayo Clinic. He also earned a certificate in financial management (a six-course program) from Cornell University. He’s currently based in Richmond, VA.