Media Releases

Three Professors from University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management named among the world’s top management thinkers

November 10, 2015

Toron­to, ON – For the sec­ond rank­ing in a row, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment was the sole Cana­di­an school rep­re­sent­ed on the bi-annu­al Thinkers50 rank­ing of world’s lead­ing man­age­ment thinkers. Three of its fac­ul­ty mem­bers with the Mar­tin Pros­per­i­ty Insti­tute (MPI) were named to the Thinkers50 at a gala din­ner in Lon­don, UK on Novem­ber 9, includ­ing two in the top ten. Anoth­er two MPI fel­lows made their debut in the rank­ing, which meant the MPI had five thinkers in the rank­ing or 10% of the total.

Prof. Roger Mar­tin, the for­mer dean of the Rot­man School and cur­rent Insti­tu­tion Direc­tor of its MPI, placed 7^th in the rank­ing and was cit­ed for his work in Strat­e­gy, Inte­gra­tive Think­ing and Social Entre­pre­neur­ship.  Prof. Mar­tin was also the joint win­ner, with Sal­ly Osberg, Skoll Foun­da­tion Pres­i­dent & CEO, of the Social Enter­prise Award.  Their book, Get­ting Beyond Bet­ter: How Social Entre­pre­neur­ship Works, was pub­lished by Har­vard Busi­ness Review Press, ear­li­er this year.

Don Tap­scott, an adjunct pro­fes­sor and fel­low at the MPI, placed 4^th on the list for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive rank­ing   He is con­sid­ered to be a lead­ing author­i­ty on inno­va­tion, media, glob­al­iza­tion and the eco­nom­ic and social impact of tech­nol­o­gy on busi­ness and soci­ety.

Prof. Richard Flori­da, direc­tor at the MPI, made a strong show­ing on this year’s rank­ing plac­ing 14^th, up from 25^th in 2013. He is glob­al­ly rec­og­nized for his lead­ing work on the cre­ative class, inno­va­tion and the dri­vers of city pros­per­i­ty.

In addi­tion, two MPI fel­lows debuted on the list with Nilofer Mer­chant plac­ing 48^th and Prof. Adam Grant of the Whar­ton School plac­ing 25^th.

A record four­teen women were includ­ed in the rank­ing and four­teen thinkers also made their debuts in the rank­ing this year.

For the sec­ond rank­ing in a row, Cana­da was well rep­re­sent­ed with two thinkers in the top 10 with the Rot­man School’s Prof. Roger Mar­tin and Don Tap­scott. Cana­di­an Syd Finkel­stein, a pro­fes­sor at the Tuck School of Busi­ness at Dart­mouth Col­lege also made the list. In addi­tion, Cana­di­an Hen­ry Mintzberg of the Desaul­tels Fac­ul­ty of Man­age­ment at McGill Uni­ver­si­ty received a life­time achieve­ment award.

“Inter­est­ing times yield inter­est­ing ideas,” say Thinkers50 founders Stu­art Crain­er and Des Dearlove. “How we view busi­ness and how busi­ness is prac­ticed is chang­ing. The ideas of the peo­ple fea­tured in the Thinkers50 rank­ing make a dif­fer­ence on the fac­to­ry floor and in the board­rooms of the world. In busi­ness today, ideas mat­ter because they can be the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure.”

Thinkers50 scans, ranks and shares the very best in man­age­ment ideas. Its defin­i­tive glob­al rank­ing of man­age­ment thinkers is pub­lished every two years. Pre­vi­ous win­ners include Pro­fes­sor Clay­ton Chris­tensen of Har­vard Busi­ness School (2013 and 2011); CK Pra­ha­l­ad (2009 and 2007); Michael Porter (2005) and Peter Druck­er (2001 and 2003).

For Thinkers50 2015, more than 20,000 peo­ple named their favourite thinker at the Thinkers50 web­site and 1,200 peo­ple nom­i­nat­ed thinkers for spe­cif­ic Dis­tin­guished Achieve­ment Awards.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Thinkers50 awards and pro­gram is online at www.thinkers50.com.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness chal­lenges.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­itwww.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool