ITHACA, N.Y. -- John Bogle, founder of the pioneering Vanguard Group, now one of the two largest mutual fund organizations in the world, will speak on his holistic "servant leadership" style at Cornell University Wednesday, April 10. His talk, at 4:30 p.m. in Barnes Hall auditorium, is free and open to the public.

Bogle, who was named one of the top four investment giants of the 20th century by Fortune magazine in 1999, will discuss the holistic approach to organizational effectiveness that he favors. It involves the concepts of serving others, sharing decision-making and promoting a sense of community within an organization. Initially developed by an AT&T senior executive in the 1970s, it has been championed recently by management gurus Ken Blanchard and Warren Bennis. Bogle's talk is part of the Park Leadership Speakers series sponsored by Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Bogle founded Vanguard in 1974 and served as chairman through 1997 and senior chairman through 1999. His Vanguard 500 Index Fund was the first indexed fund -- an investment fund whose portfolio is structured to mirror the performance of an index of top funds -- in the United States. Today it is the largest fund in the Vanguard Group, which now comprises 100 mutual funds with assets at about $550 billion. Now president of Bogle Financial Markets Research Center, Bogle is one of six people appointed to a special board set up to rescue Arthur Andersen L.L.P., the accounting firm tainted by the Enron debacle.

Bogle is the author of two best-selling books on investing, Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor (Irwin Professional Publishing, 1993) and Common Sense of Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor (John Wiley & Sons, 1999) as well as the well-received John Bogle on Investing: The First 50 Years (McGraw Hill, 2000).

He was described as one of the "financial leaders of the 20th century" in Leadership in Financial Services, a 1997 Macmillan book, and received the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University, his alma mater, for "distinguished achievements in the nation's service."

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