ABOUT BARRY ROWAN
THE WHY
Business is responsible for billions of jobs and managing trillions of dollars. As individuals we will work approximately 100,000 hours in our lifetimes. As the goodness of God is infused into the people behind these numbers, our world will become a better place. Lives will be transformed, businesses will strive for excellence and treat people with dignity and respect, politicians will be focused on the Common Good, and the joy of generosity will pervade the land.
I had it so wrong for so long. I have lived the anguish of confusion, progressed into the freedom of clarity, and experienced the joy of an intimate relationship with the living God. If God can create this profound transformation in the likes of me, he can and desires to do it in all people. I long for the world to know God and his transforming power.
Living our lives from the inside-out with God at the center builds from a solid core. As we become less and God becomes more, his love will pour into us, through us, and into our families and the world He so loves.
Experiencing God’s power to transform us and society through us, we have committed the balance of our lives to catalyzing people to live fully for God in the world.
“Working through The Spiritual Art of Business is a thought-provoking, spiritually enriching endeavor that can transform our relationship with God and our work.”
BIOGRAPHY
Barry Rowan has a broad-based executive background and a strong track record of transforming companies from a range of C-Suite roles, primarily in the technology and communications space. Barry’s career has included building eight businesses through periods of hypergrowth and dramatic turnarounds, including the sale of one company for $10 billion. Grounded in a character-based approach to leadership, he has served as a division general manager, led two private companies as CEO/President, and has been CFO for four public companies, including Fluke Corporation, Nextel Partners, Vonage, and Gogo. Barry has also served as a director for public and private companies.
Motivated by his desire for giving back to the community and investing in the next generation of leaders, Barry has served as a trustee for Seattle Pacific University (where he was also the founding chair for the Center for Integrity in Business) and Gordon College, the board of advisors for the Honors Program in Entrepreneurial Leadership at Gonzaga University, and as President of Bellevue Christian School. He has served on the national board of InterVarsity and chairs the board of the Harvard Business School Christian Fellowship and Alumni Association.
Barry and his family are committed to helping the poor locally as well as through bringing clean water to the people of Central America. They have made over twenty trips to the region, and he and his wife, Linda, serve on the National Leadership Council for World Vision. Barry has taught university courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and is a frequently requested speaker at a wide variety of forums.
Barry earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1983, and his B.S. summa cum laude in Business Administration and Chemical Biology from The College of Idaho in 1979.
While Barry recently retired from a full-time executive role, he has not retired from life. He and Linda have been married for over forty-two years, and after completing a month-long silent retreat (the one thing on his bucket list!), he and Linda are now pursuing an “encore calling.” Flowing from a life of prayer, this new season will include multiple lines of service—walking with the poor, serving on corporate and non-profit boards, writing, speaking, teaching and "holistic accompaniment” of leaders who have been called to live fully for God in the world.
Barry came to a surrendered faith out of a crisis of meaning in work, and ultimately developed a transformed perspective of work which animated the last twenty-five years of his career. The power of this experience, the energy it brought to his career, and seeing so many emerging leaders wrestling with the same questions compelled him to write The Spiritual Art of Business: Connecting the Daily with the Divine.
Barry and Linda raised two beloved sons, Mark, and David, who are both married to wonderful women, and they have three young “grands.” An avid reader and lover of the outdoors, Barry enjoys skiing, hiking, golf, and many other sports, even if it’s meant trading in his mountain bike for an e-bike.
www.linkedin.com/in/barrylrowan
What Leaders Are Saying
“The Spiritual Art of Business can transform the way you think about your faith in the context of your work. Based on his own remarkable career, Barry’s book takes you into the unvarnished crucible of the workplace—with all its gritty challenges, victories, setbacks, and difficult people—and shows you how your career can become a sacred and purposeful journey instead of just a daily and exhausting grind. Spend a few hours with Barry, and he will show you how God intends to repurpose you. The Spiritual Art of Business is a book that can transform the next few decades of your career.”
“In a conversational style that feels like a fireside chat with an old friend, Barry Rowan has distilled his study of the Bible and decades of experience as a senior executive in The Spiritual Art of Business. Each chapter is a nugget of wisdom, and the reader will be rewarded for remembering the stories and taking seriously the questions that Barry poses.”
“In The Spiritual Art of Business, Barry Rowan takes us on a forty-day journey of submission and renewal in Christ. A seasoned C-suite executive, Rowan has thought deeply about the theological and practical realities of God working through him in the marketplace. And in this study he takes us on a four-part journey of surrender, transformation, realignment, and fulfillment. It’s a journey every Christ-follower in business should take, and Barry is a worthy guide and mentor in this important spiritual work.”
“This is a truly helpful work, integrating deep spiritual lessons with the call to serve God and others in the business arena. The short chapters that conclude with penetrating reflection questions are perfect for creating space to do your own integrative work. It is both a blessing and a challenge!”
“Working through The Spiritual Art of Business is a thought-provoking, spiritually enriching endeavor that can transform our relationship with God and our work. Barry Rowan’s short and practical chapters reflect his own deep wrestling with God about the meaning of his work and all the accompanying trials and rewards. He launches us into our own ‘archaeological dig’ into the feelings, beliefs, and habits that so often encumber our experience of work. Do a chapter each day, using the probing reflection questions at the end, and allow yourself to be drawn deeper into the freedom and adventure available through a life of following Christ.”
“Barry Rowan’s decades spent in senior leadership experience are set in a new light in The Spiritual Art of Business as he humbly calls Christians to a life of surrender and service. In laying down our personal desires and plans, we can pursue transformed lives, ones realigned with God’s purpose.”
“God has a purpose for us, explains the apostle Paul in Romans 8:28. In The Spiritual Art of Business, Barry Rowan uses his life as a perfect example of God purposefully using his work. The wonderful reflection questions at the end of every chapter allow readers to deeply examine their lives, especially relating to their work. I recommend this book to anyone in the workplace. It would especially be great for a small group or book club to go through together, then touch base periodically afterward. God does have a purpose for all of us in our work, in different ways and at different times, to be his light on earth.”
“I have long admired how Barry Rowan integrates his commitment to God with his daily business practices. This book is a wise distillation of his learning, hard won over a wide-ranging career marked by both successes and failures. Through short and accessible chapters, Rowan encourages us to surrender our work to God, allow God to use our work to transform us, realign our work with God’s purposes, and contribute to a better world through our work. This is a book to be read slowly, savored, and revisited over time.”