Michael Reuter

"Live passionately; love unconditionally; care deeply."

Published in October 2020

Michael M. Reuter, a native New Yorker born and raised in Brooklyn, was a former instructor in the Department of Management and the Director of the Gerald P. Buccino '63 Center for Leadership Development at Seton Hall, an intensive four-year program designed to prepare and develop students to become future global leaders. Under Reuter's leadership, the center went on to be ranked nationally in the LEAD Awards sponsored by HR.com as the #1 Certificate Program with Emphasis on Leadership/Organizational Development for five years in a row. The success of the program provided the cornerstone for the creation of the Seton Hall-wide Buccino Leadership Institute in 2018. Before recently retiring in August of 2020, Reuter was a part of Seton Hall's Stillman School of Business for 13 years.

Prior to joining the Seton Hall Pirate family back in 2007, Reuter coached and mentored executives and business professionals for over 25 years, spearheading many successful organizational change management initiatives along the way. In his weekly blog, Three Minute Leadership, Reuter writes inspirational notes on an array of topics related to leadership for business leaders, students, and others that he has coached. On his site, he mentions that his posts serve “to instill a mindset of flexibility, adaptability, imagination and resilience in great leaders.”

In a Zoom session, moderated by Bryan Price, current executive director of the leadership institute, Reuter spoke to over 250 individuals on what was titled Reuter's "Last Lecture." Gathered virtually to celebrate his legacy, Reuter reminds students, alumni, faculty and administration, fellow colleagues, stakeholders, and so many more that:

You can't start a fire in your organization unless one is burning inside of you, and I
pray that I have served you that way and that you in turn will take your same fire and
set it in people, organizations, and community.

Reuter goes on to speak more about life and learning, passing on his desires for the community that he has built to remain a family, to take risks in stretching and growing themselves, and to remain ceaseless in their endeavors, never giving up in becoming more than they ever dreamed they could be… and more… so much more.

In a personal interview, when asked what being a leader meant to him, Reuter explained that it meant, “caring deeply for those you serve, seeing their incredible value and helping them see it also.” He noted the importance of embracing the beauty and richness of diversity, not just in others, but also in their beliefs, perspectives, and viewpoints. To those that he has coached, Reuter says that he hopes to leave behind “a passion and love of life and all they do” and “a mindset to see the world not as it is, but as it can be.” To future management students and students of the leadership institute, he emphasizes, “open your mind to new possibilities; push and stretch yourselves to find your incredible, unique gifts within…” Above all else, he urges us all to remember always that “the best is yet to come, and it will because we choose it to be.”

Alongside a host of co-authored papers on the career learnings and experiences of a variety of senior executives, Reuter is a former thought leadership writer for American Entrepreneurship Today and a keynote speaker on leadership at various events. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the United States Hispanic Advocacy Association (USHAA), and the Board's Ambassador for Leadership. He is the former Board Chairman for WitnessHOPE, and former executive Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Raise Hope Foundation.

Michael Reuter attended Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception and the Jesuit Seminary and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Saint Peter's University. He served in the U. S. military in Strategic Intelligence and as an Embassy Liaison Officer in the Republic of Viet Nam and was awarded the Joint Services Commendation Medal. In 1969 after his return from service, Reuter joined AT&T, and eventually went on to earn a Master of Business Administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University.