Kerr is a senior advisor to Goldman Sachs and previously served as the firm’s chief learning officer and a managing director. Kerr came to Goldman Sachs from General Electric, where he was vice president of corporate leadership development and chief learning officer, including responsibility for GE’s leadership education center at Crotonville. He has been on the business school faculties of Ohio State University, the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California, where he was dean of the faculty and director of the Ph.D. program.

Kerr is a former president of the Academy of Management, the world's largest association of academicians in management. His writings on leadership are among the most cited and reprinted in the management sciences.