Timothy L. Fort

Timothy L. Fort (born 1958) is an American legal scholar, business ethicist, and peacebuilding researcher. He holds the Eveleigh Endowed Chair in Business Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University . He is recognized as a founder of the academic field of business and peace .

Education Fort received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Notre Dame and both a Juris Doctor and a Doctor of Philosophy in Theology from Northwestern University . He has also held fellowships at the Business Roundtable Ethics Institute and the William Davidson Institute.

Fort has authored fifteen books and edited an additional twenty-five pedagogical works, with major publications through Cambridge University Press, Stanford University Press, Oxford University Press, and Yale University Press .

His subsequent work established the field of business and peace . Fort co-chaired a task force on business and peace with the U.S. Institute of Peace, partnered with the U.S. State Department on a program placing MBA students as pro bono consultants to entrepreneurs in conflict-sensitive zones, and has presented his research to the United Nations Working Group on Business and Peace as well as the United States’ Council of Foreign Relations . Fort is among very few scholars to have won this award twice. The Sincerity Edge: How Ethical Leaders Build Dynamic Businesses (Stanford University Press, 2017), co-authored with Alexandra Christina, Countess of Frederiksborg, was a finalist for the same award in 2018 .

Fort's most recent research develops the concept of "Cultural Foundations of Peace," examining how cultural artifacts including music, sports, and film function as behavioral nudges toward ethical decision-making and as bridges across social and political division . This work has involved collaboration with the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the IU Cinema, and Kristin Hahn, Executive Producer of Apple TV's The Morning Show .

Recognition Fort received the Distinguished Career Faculty Award from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business in 2022 . He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 2024 and 2025 for his work demonstrating how business organizations can serve as a positive force for sustainable peace . He has taught Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jerry White (co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines) 2016, Academy of Management's Best Book Award in the area of Social Issues in Management (SIM) for The Diplomat in the Corner Office: Corporate Foreign Policy (2015). 2022, Distinguished Career Faculty Award of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business 2024, Fort nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.