Business across Religious Traditions

BART Leadership

The Business across Religious Traditions seminars began as a collaboration between Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Business School. The program continues to draw from the rich intellectual resources available throughout Harvard.

Harvard Divinity School is one of the world's foremost institutions for scholarship and education in religious and ministry studies and is committed to producing leaders who understand today's multifaith world. HDS educates men and women who fully appreciate the religious dimensions of daily experience, enabling them to change the world through a deepened understanding of religion and the human spirit.

Cross-faculty endeavors at Harvard University draw on the enormous range of expertise and specialization available across the University.

Ronald F. Thiemann

Director, BART, and Bussey Professor of Theology, Harvard Divinity School

Ronald F. Thiemann holds the Benjamin Bussey Professorship of Theology, the oldest endowed chair in theology at Harvard. He has been at Harvard since 1986 and served as Dean of the Divinity School from 1986 until 1998. Thiemann is a faculty associate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He has also been a faculty affiliate at the Harvard Kennedy School's Harvard Center for Public Leadership and has received a fellowship from the center in support of his current research project. An ordained Lutheran and a specialist on the role of religion in public life, Thiemann is the author of several books and articles. He is currently working on a book-length project titled "Prisoners of Conscience: Literary Artists as Social Critics," which will trace the relation among religion, aesthetics, and politics in both visual and literary realist art. In 2006, Thiemann represented the U.S. National Academies of Science on a lecture tour of universities and research centers in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2010 he was appointed the North American representative to the Lutheran Roman Catholic International Commission on Christian Unity by the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican.

H. Bruce McEver

Benefactor, BART

H. Bruce McEver founded Berkshire Capital in 1983, pioneering the concept of providing independent merger, acquisition, and strategic advisory services for investment managers and securities firms. As chairman, McEver directs the long-term strategy and business development efforts of Berkshire Capital, in addition to his responsibilities for maintaining long-standing client relationships.

Prior to founding Berkshire Capital, McEver served as the assistant to the chairman of Paine Webber Group for mergers and acquisitions. He was formerly a vice president for mergers and acquisitions with Blyth Eastman Dillon, a firm acquired by Paine Webber Group in 1981. McEver began his career as a venture capital analyst at Bessemer Securities and was an assistant vice president for corporate finance at Chemical Bank.

McEver earned a BS in industrial engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School. He was an exchange student at the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, Germany. As a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, he was on the staff of the assistant secretary of defense, working in systems analysis. He is a member of the Dean's Council at Harvard Divinity School.