Campus & Community

PON honors business leader Wasserstein with Great Negotiator Award

2 min read

The Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School (HLS) presented its 2007 Great Negotiator Award to Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and CEO of Lazard, an international financial advisory and asset management firm, on April 2. Wasserstein was selected in August 2006 to receive the award by the executive committee of PON — a network of faculty and scholars from Boston-area universities dedicated to developing the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution.

Wasserstein participated in a full day of activities with PON faculty and students this past Monday (April 23), concluding with a dinner reception in his honor. Wasserstein, a graduate of Harvard Business School (HBS) and HLS, has more than 30 years of negotiation and deal-making experience in the investment banking and the mergers and acquisitions industries. Since the 1980s, he has been involved with more than a thousand transactions worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Wasserstein is the author of four books: “The Closed Enterprise System: Ralph Nader’s Study Group on Antitrust Enforcement”; “With Justice for Some: An Indictment of the Law by Young Advocates”; “Corporate Finance Law”; and “Big Deal: The Battle for the Control of America’s Leading Corporation.”

The Great Negotiator Award was created seven years ago by PON to recognize an individual whose lifetime achievements in the field of negotiation and dispute resolution have had a significant and lasting impact. Past recipients include Sadako Ogata, former UN high commissioner for refugees, and Stuart Eizenstat, former U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

Wasserstein was honored by members of the Harvard community and invited guests on Monday (April 23) at the Fogg Art Museum. Prior to the evening reception, he participated in a special private session with HBS and HLS students who have been studying significant business deals managed by Wasserstein as part of a course called “Deal Setup, Design & Implementation.” A public discussion with Wasserstein was also held that afternoon at HLS. PON and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review co-sponsored the discussion.

PON is a world-renowned research center committed to improving the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution. The program draws from many disciplines including law, business, government, psychology, economics, anthropology, and education.