Five Indians among top 50 management thinkers
Harvard professor Michael E. Porter ranks as most influential living management thinker of 2015
Published every two years, Thinkers50 is a who’s who of business thinkers and ideas and is considered to be one of the world’s most prestigious rankings.
Renowned Harvard professor Michael E. Porter, the father of modern business strategy, is the most influential living management thinker of 2015, according to the Thinkers50 2015 global ranking.
Published every two years, Thinkers50 is a who’s who of business thinkers and ideas and is considered to be one of the world’s most prestigious rankings. This year, theThinkers50 ranking was unveiled on Sunday at the Oscars of Management Thinking awards at Drapers’ Hall in London.
The top 50 includes thinkers from 10 countries: the US, Canada, Bangladesh, Denmark, the Netherlands, South Korea, China, the UK, India and Cuba.
Top 5 management thinkers
Michael Porter returns to the top of the list after eight years. He previously topped the list in 2008. Management guru, thinker, consultant and author, Porter wears many hats. Originator of the Five Forces Framework and the concept of shared value that argues that firms should generate value for society as well as shareholders, Porter stands tall at No. 1.
Innovation is the middle name of Harvard professor Clayton Christensen who is No. 2 in the 2015 Thinkers50 ranking. The Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen topped the Thinkers50 in 2011 and then again in 2013.
Michael Porter returns to the top of the list after eight years. He previously topped the list in 2008. Management guru, thinker, consultant and author, Porter wears many hats. Originator of the Five Forces Framework and the concept of shared value, which argues that firms should generate value for society as well as for shareholders, Porter stands tall at No. 1.
Innovation is the middle name of Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, who comes in at No. 2. The Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen topped the Thinkers50 in 2011 and then again in 2013.
sixthMAdsAt No. 3 are W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, INSEAD professors and co-authors of Blue Ocean Strategy. Published in 2005 and touted as one of the most successful management books of all times, it has sold over 2 million copies, been translated into a record-breaking 42 languages and is a bestseller across five continents.
At No. 4 is Don Tapscott, Canadian technology guru, who is in the top five for the second year in a row. A global expert on the digital economy, Tapscott has written more than 15 books on the subject, including the famous Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, co-authored with Anthony Williams in 2006. His latest book, The Trust Protocol, is due to be published in 2016.
Super coach Marshall Goldsmith comes fifth. An adjunct professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Goldsmith also picked up the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award for Leadership with his latest bestselling book Triggers: Creating Behavior that Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be.
Top 5 Indian thinkers
All five Indians who make it to the top 50 are luminaries in their respective fields and prolific authors. Vijay Govindarajan (No. 13), professor of international business at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, co-authored the Reverse Innovation and is also responsible for posing the question that sparked a global challenge to build a $300 house, which earned him the Thinkers50 CK Prahalad Breakthrough Idea Award in 2011. In 2013, Govindarajan was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award
Pankaj Ghemawat (No. 19) is based at New York’s Stern school and IESE Business School in Spain. Nominated for the 2013 Thinkers50 Global Solutions Award for his Global Connectedness Index, Ghemawat was the youngest full professor at Harvard Business School. His 2011 book World 3.0 won the Thinkers50 Book Award.
At No. 39, Subir Chowdhury, “The Quality Prophet”, is chairman and CEO of ASI Consulting Group and author of The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma is Transforming the Way We Work (2001), and, most recently, of The Power of LEO: The Revolutionary Process for Achieving Extraordinary Business Results (2011).
Nirmalya Kumar (No. 40) is the recently appointed director of strategy at Tata Group. He was previously professor of marketing at London Business School and is the author of Private Label Strategy and India Inside, among others. Interestingly, Kumar is a keen collector of the works of Indian artist Jamini Roy, and is said to have the largest collection of Roy paintings outside of India.
At No. 47 is stalwart Anil K. Gupta, who is the Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and a visiting professor at INSEAD. He is also chief adviser to the China India Institute, a Washington DC-based research and consulting firm. He is the author of Global Strategies for Emerging Asia (2012).
New additions to the list
A record 14 newcomers make it to the Thinkers50 ranking this year. One of them is Zhang Ruimin, CEO of Chinese white goods giant Haier. At No. 38, Ruimin is the highest-ever ranked Chinese thinker (and the third Chinese thinker ever to make the top 50). Haier and Ruimin also picked up the Thinkers50 Award for Ideas into Practice, for applying a progressive business philosophy.
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