Deborah J. Barrett is Professor of the Practice of Writing and Communication at Rice University where she teaches leadership communication, consulting, negotiations, and organizational communication to the undergraduates and cross-disciplinary writing and research methods and creative nonfiction to the graduate students.

Deborah has specialized in professional writing and communication for most of her teaching career. She taught technical writing at Texas A&M University and Houston Baptist University, where she was an associate professor in English and director of the writing specialization and English internship programs. At Rice University, she was a senior lecturer of MBA communication at the Jones Graduate School of Business and also served as Director of the MBA Communication Program.

Deborah's years working as a consultant for McKinsey & Company, Hill & Knowlton, and University Connections, the consulting and executive development company of which she is cofounder, influenced her very practical approach to leadership communication. At McKinsey & Company, she worked as a communication consultant for over five years, serving as a leader in the change communication practice, developing and conducting Firm training, and leading and working with McKinsey teams on communication and general management consulting projects throughout the world. She was one of the few communication consultants Firmwide selected to attend McKinsey's Engagement Leadership Training, their advanced leadership training for senior associates. At Hill & Knowlton, Deborah was a senior managing director, brought in to build an employee communication and change management practice.

In her consulting work, Deborah has been able to put her academic experience and leadership communication concepts to the test. She has created communication strategies for many different types of organizational communication situations, including mergers and acquisitions, developed major change programs, designed and conducted vision/strategy development programs, developed internal communication improvement programs, and established strategic plans for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. She has coached many senior-level executives, including CEOs of major corporations, in writing, speaking, and interpersonal skills and has conducted numerous workshops for leaders at all levels.

Deborah has published articles in scholarly journals and presented papers at conferences on communication ethics, changer communication, employee communication, intercultural communication, virtual teams, PowerPoint, effective M.B.A. communication, emotional intelligence, and leadership communication and is currently researching the effect of social media on intercultural communication. She serves on the editorial boards of the Business Communication Quarterly, Education Review of Business Communication, Corporate Communication: An International Journal, and The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture, and Change Management.

Her B.A. in English and speech and her M.A. in English are from the University of Houston, and her Ph.D. in English is from Rice University.