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avatar for Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen

Harvard Business School
Kim B. Clark professor of Business Administration
Clayton Christensen is the Kim B. Clark professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, where heteaches one of the most popular elective classes for second year students, Building and Sustaining a SuccessfulEnterprise. He is regarded as one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth and his ideas have been widelyused in industries and organizations throughout the world. A 2011 cover story in Forbes magazine noted that ‘’Everydaybusiness leaders call him or make the pilgrimage to his office in Boston, Mass. to get advice or thank him for his ideas.’’ In2011, in a poll of thousands of executives, consultants and business school professors, Christensen was named as themost influential business thinker in the world.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Christensen worked as a missionary for his church in the Republic of Korea from 1971 to1973, where he learned to speak fluent Korean. He continues to serve in his church in as many ways as he can.

Christensen received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, summa cum laude, from Brigham Young University and aMaster of Philosophy degree in Applied Econometrics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Hesubsequently received Master of Business Administration degree with High Distinction from the Harvard Business Schoolin 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. In 1982, Christensen was named a White House Fellow, and served asassistant to U.S. Transportation Secretaries Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole. He was awarded his Doctor of BusinessAdministration degree from the Harvard Business School in 1992, and became a faculty member there the same year,eventually receiving full professorship with tenure in 1998. He holds five honorary doctorates and an honorary chairedprofessorship at the Tsinghua University in Taiwan.

Prior to his academic career, Christensen worked as a management consultant with BCG in their Boston office and helpedco-found Ceramics Process Systems, a Massachusetts-based advanced materials company. He has subsequently helpedestablish many other successful enterprises, including the innovation consulting firm Innosight, the public policy think tankInnosight Institute, and the boutique investment firm Rose Park Advisors.

Christensen is the best-selling author of nine books and more than a hundred articles. His first book, The Innovator’sDilemma received the Global Business Book Award as the best business book of the year (1997); and in 2011, TheEconomist named it as one of the six most important books about business ever written. His other articles and books havereceived the Abernathy, Newcomen, James Madison, and Circle Prizes. Christensen is a five-time recipient of theMcKinsey Award, given each year to the two best articles published in the Harvard Business Review; and has receivedthe Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tribeca Films Festival (2010). He was named a top “Thinkers50 GlobalManagement Thinker” in 2015.

Christensen has served on the Boy Scouts of America for 25 years as a scoutmaster, cubmaster, den leader, troop andpack committee chairman. He and his wife Christine live in Belmont, Massachusetts. They are the parents of five childrenand grandparents to five grandchildren.