Dr. Denise Cumberland is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Louisville. She has a joint appointment in the College of Business and the College of Education and Human Development. She teaches and consults on workplace ethics, employee empowerment, change, innovation, and teamwork. Denise also serves as the Senior Researcher for the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence. In recent empirical work, she interviewed healthcare workers across the country during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to listen to their voices and identify what their employer could do to improve workplace conditions. She also assisted a national U.S. organization to identify what employees thought should be done to create a more inclusive work environment. In past work, she also interviewed CEOs to examine their role in modifying HRD practices for employees working on the frontline. Currently, she is working on research to understand the gaps/needs of women and underrepresented novice entrepreneurs.

Denise received her Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in 2012. Before shifting to academia, she worked in the corporate sector, leading marketing programs, consumer research, and innovation. She has over 40+ peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals such as Human Resource Development Quarterly, Human Resource Development International, Leadership Organization and Development Journal, and Performance Improvement Quarterly. She has multiple book chapters focused on teaching and regularly contributes to practitioner journals such as Franchising Today.

One of my greatest passions is enabling learning, growth, and change – within people, within groups, and within organizations. I fulfill this passion as a scholar-practitioner in the field of organization development (OD). As an OD professional by day, I work with clients to solve complex business issues that often require expanding the capabilities and effectiveness of people to increase organizational performance. As an adjunct professor by night, I bring my applied experience to the classroom where I teach a largely adult population of aspiring OD practitioners.
This combination of daily practice and classroom teaching allows me to reduce the theory to practice gap, ultimately producing more evidence-based practice.

Specialties: Organization Analysis & Development • Business Strategy • Consultation • Leadership Development • Employee Learning • Individual/Team/Executive Coaching • Change Leadership • Performance Management • Adult Learning Techniques • Group Facilitation