Arthur C. Brooks

Arthur Charles Brooks (born May 21, 1964) is an American author and academic. Brooks is the Kohler Family Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University and a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School. He is a CBS News contributor, columnist with The Free Press, and host of the weekly podcast “Office Hours with Arthur Brooks.” From 2019 to 2026, Brooks served as the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit and Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and at the Harvard Business School as a professor of management practice and faculty fellow. As of July 1, 2026, he was also named as an endowed professor at Vanderbilt University. Previously, Brooks served as the 11th president of the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of sixteen books, including The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with co-author Oprah Winfrey (2023), From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life (2022), Love Your Enemies (2019), The Conservative Heart (2015), and The Road to Freedom (2012). He is a columnist for The Free Press, a CBS News contributor, and host of the podcast Office Hours with Arthur Brooks.