The 2019 Thinkers50 work primarily out of business school. Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and the London Business School lead the pack with four faculty members each. Dartmouth Tuck, Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan, and the Wharton School each placed two members on this year’s list. NYU Stern, IMD, Oxford Said, Berkeley Haas, Maryland Smith, Boston Questrom, Toronto Rotman, and the University of Lausanne each notched one faculty member on Thinkers50 as well.
| Rank | Name | School | Known For… | Previous Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne | INSEAD | Authors of The Blue Ocean Strategy | 4 |
| 2 | Roger Martin | University of Toronto (Rotman) | Former Dean (Rotman) and Co-Author of Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works | 1 |
| 3 | Amy Edmondson | Harvard Business School | Author of The Fearless Organization, Teaming To Innovate and Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate and Compete in the Knowledge Economy | 3 |
| 4 | Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur | Strategyzer (Osterwalder); University of Lausanne (Pigneur) | Co-Authors of Value Proposition Design: How To Create Products and Services customers Want and Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Gamechangers and Challengers | 7 |
| 5 | Rita McGrath | Columbia Business School | Author of The End of Competitive Advantage: How To Keep Your Strategy Moving As Fast As Your Business | 10 |
| 6 | Daniel Pink | Author | Author of Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working For Yourself and To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing and Influencing Others | 11 |
| 7 | Richard D'Aveni | Dartmouth (Tuck) | Author of Strategic Capitalism and The Pre-Industrial Revolution | 9 |
| 8 | Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee | MIT (Sloan) | Authors of Rage Against The Machine and The Second Machine Age | 12 |
| 9 | Scott D. Anthony | Innosight (Senior Partner) | Author of seven books and consultant who focuses on capitalizing on disuption (HBS Grad) | 34 |
| 10 | Adam Grant | Wharton | Author of Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach To Success and Top-Rated Professor at Wharton for Four Consecutive Years | 8 |
| 11 | Simon Sinek | Consultant and Motivational Speaker | Consultant and author of five books on organizational leadership | 18 |
| 12 | Erik Ries | Long-Term Stock Exchange | Pioneer of lean startup methodology | 16 |
| 13 | Lynda Gratton | London Business School | Founder of the Hot Spots Movement; Head of the Future of Work Research Consortium; and Author of Humoan Resource Strategy: Corporate Rhetoric, Individual Reality and Living Strategy, The Democratic Enterprise, and Glow. | 29 |
| 14 | Whitney Johnson | WLJ Advisors (Also teaches in Harvard Business School's corporate learning program) | Co-Founder of Clayton Christensen's Investment Fund; Regular Contributor to The Harvard Business Review | 30 |
| 15 | Zhang Ruimin | Haier Group | Chairman and CEO of the Haier Group (Ranked Among the Largest Manufacturers and Most Innovative Companies); Dubbed a | 26 |
| 16 | Hal Gregersen | MIT (Sloan) | Co-author of The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators and collaborator with Clayton Christensen; Developed | 24 |
| 17 | Liz Wiserman | Wiseman Group | President of the Wiseman Group; Author of Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our School | 35 |
| 18 | Hermenia Ibarra | London Business School | Author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies For Reinventing Your Career; Winner of the Thinkers50 Leadership Award | 20 |
| 19 | Pankaj Ghemawat | New York University (Stern) | Author of World 3.0 and Developer of the DHL Global Connectedness Index | 17 |
| 20 | Martin Lindstrom | Lindstrom Company | Author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy; Named one of the | 36 |
| 21 | Francesca Gino | Harvard Business School | Author and researcher who focuses on how talent can enhance their creativity and productivity. Author of Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules in Work and Life | 49 |
| 22 | Linda Hill | Harvard Business School | Author of Becoming a Manager and Co-Author of Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives of Becoming a Great Leader | 15 |
| 23 | Steve Blank | Consultant, Author and Speaker (Also teaches at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Columbia, and NYU) | Co-author of The Startup Owner's Manual and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany | 14 |
| 24 | Subhir Chowdhury | ASI Consulting Group | Author of 13 Books, including The Ice Cream Maker and The Power of Six Sigma; Pioneer behind Six Sigma Framework | 27 |
| 25 | Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang | University of Maryland (Smith) (Note: Haiyan Wang is managing partner of the China India Institute and also a Smith MBA '95) | Research and writing partners in the rise of China and India. Gupta is also a co-author of Global Strategies for Emerging Asia. | 28 |
| 26 | Morten Hansen | U.C.-Berkeley (Haas) | Co-Author of Great By Choice (with Jim Collins) and Author of Collaboration | 41 |
| 27 | Niolfer Merchant | Author (Also a Santa Clara MBA '00) | Author of 11 Rules For Creating Value In The #SocialEra and The New How | 22 |
| 28 | Ming Zeng | Alibaba Group | The former action president of Yahoo, Zeng is now the chief strategy officer at Alibaba and author of 2018's Smart Business. | NR |
| 29 | Michael D. Watkins | IMD | Best-selling author of The First 90 Days, which has sold over a million copies. | NR |
| 30 | Rachel Botsman | Oxford University (Said) | An expert in technology and consumer trust, Botsman is the author of What's Mine Is Yours and 2017's Who Can You Trust | 46 |
| 31 | Gary Hamel | Strategos | One of the Originators of | 31 |
| 32 | Erin Meyer | INSEAD | Along with being the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business, Meyer also authored | 39 |
| 33 | Susan David | Harvard Medical School | A psychologist by trade, David is the author of Emotional Agility - rated as Thinkers50's Breakthrough Idea of The Year in 2017/ | 40 |
| 34 | Seth Godin | Author (Stanford GSB MBA '84) | Founder of Squidoo; Pioneered the Six-Month MBA Program; Author of 17 Books, Including Tribes, Linchpin, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable; and Poke The Box | 33 |
| 35 | Amy Cuddy | Harvard Business School (Executive Education) | Developed Stereotype and Content Model (SCM); 2012 TedTalk ( | 43 |
| 36 | Marshall Van Alstyne and Geoff Parker | Van Alstyne: Boston University (Questrom); Parker: Dartmouth (Thayer Engineering) | Van Alstyne and Parker are the co-authors of the highly-influential Platform Revolution and the recipients of the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award in 2019. | NR |
| 37 | Gianpiero Petriglieri | INSEAD | A psychiatrist, Petriglieri has won an array of awards for his research and teaching, including 2018's best case in human resources and organizational behavior from The Case Centre. | 47 |
| 38 | Marcus Buckingham | Author and Consultant | Buckingham's first book -- First, Break All The Rules -- was a best-seller that ranks among the 100 most influential business books of all time according to researchers Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. An expert in developing strengths and delivering feedback, Buckingham has authored nine books, including 2019's Nine Lies About Work. | |
| 39 | Frederic Laloux | Author and Executive Coach (INSEAD MBA '02) | Laloux is the author of 2014's Reinventing Organizations, one of the decade's most influential books, that re-imagines the organization in terms of no hierarchy, inner wholeness, and purpose. | |
| 40 | Gary P. Pisano | Harvard Business School | An HBS faculty member for 30 years, Pisano has authored over 100 influential articles, cases, and books, with his most recent work being 2019's Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation. He was a finalist for the 2019 Thinkers50 Innovation Award. | NR |
| 41 | Jim Collins | Author and Speaker (Stanford GSB MBA '83) | Author of Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap, Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, and How The Mighty Fall: Why Some Companies Never Given In. | 31 |
| 42 | Sheena Lyengar | Columbia Business School | Author of Art of Choosing -- ranked among the best business books of 2010 by The Financial Times. | NR |
| 43 | Stew Friedman | Wharton School | Founding Director of Wharton's Leadership Program; Pioneer in Work/Life Balance; and Author of Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life | 38 |
| 44 | Sydney Finkelstein | Dartmouth (Tuck) | Author of 17 Books, Including Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses | 23 |
| 45 | Julian Birkinshaw | London Business School | Author of Reinventing Management and Becoming a Better Boss | 45 |
| 46 | David Burkus | Author and Speaker | A prolific writer, Dr. Burkus has published three books in the past three years. The most recent is Friend of a Friend, a new way of looking at how to build strategic networks. | 48 |
| 47 | Heidi Grant | Ernst & Young | A neuroscientist by trade, Grant is the director of research and development at EY after heading up research and science at the NeuroLeadership Institute. | 50 |
| 48 | Dorie Clark | Author (Also faculty member for Duke Fuqua and Columbia Business School executive education) | A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Clark is the author of several books on personal branding, with the most recent being Entrepreneurial You. | 48 |
| 49 | Michael Jacobides | London Business School | A faculty member at LBS since 2007, Jacobides' research focuses on how innovation spreads across ecosystems. | NR |
| 50 | Tiffani Bova | Salesforce.com | The "Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist" at Salesforce, Bova is the author of 2019's Growth IQ and was shortlisted for Thinkers50's Breakthrough Idea Award. | NR |
