Dr. David Corsun

After a career as a New York City restaurateur, including as restaurant director at Tavern on the Green at age 22 and later chef and proprietor of Zanzibar & Grill, a jazz restaurant in Midtown, David Corsun left restaurant operations full time in 1993 to pursue his MS and Ph.D. degrees.

Dr. Corsun earned his Ph.D. from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in 1999, with a major in organizational behavior. He also holds a BS in Hotel Administration from Cornell and an MS in Food Service Management from New York University. He has served as director of the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver since July 2007, and has previously taught at UNLV, Washington State University, NYU, and Cornell.

Under Dr. Corsun’s leadership, the Fritz Knoebel School has become the highest ranked boutique hospitality program in the world, guided by its vision: Be bold. Do good. Change lives. The school prepares the next generation of hospitality leaders to enter the industry ready to create profitable, humane workplaces in hotels and restaurants.

His research interests span empowerment, diversity, managing change, and human capital. His work has been published in Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Management Inquiry, Human Relations, Journal of Management Development, Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.

Areas of Expertise

• Leading change
• Leadership
• Firefighting in hospitality organizations
• Creating humane workplace culture