Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Technology & Operations Management and General Management faculty groups. His research and teaching interests center on the management issues related to the development and commercialization of technological and business model innovation.

Professor Christensen holds a B.A. with highest honors in economics from Brigham Young University (1975), and an M.Phil. in applied econometrics and the economics of less-developed countries from Oxford University (1977), where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School in 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. He was awarded his DBA from the Harvard Business School in 1992.

Prior to joining the HBS faculty, Professor Christensen served as chairman and president of Ceramics Process Systems Corporation (CPS), a firm he co-founded with several MIT professors in 1984. From 1979 to 1984 he worked as a consultant and project manager with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he was instrumental in founding the firm's manufacturing strategy consulting practice. In 1982 Professor Christensen was named a White House Fellow, and served through 1983 (on a leave of absence from BCG) as assistant to U.S. Transportation Secretaries Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole.

Professor Christensen became a faculty member at the Harvard Business School in 1992. Professor Christensen currently teaches an elective course he designed called Building a Sustainably Successful Enterprise, which teaches managers how to build and manage an enduring, successful company or transform an existing organization.

Professor Christensen is the author of three bestselling books and his writings have been featured in a variety of publications. He won the Best Dissertation Award from The Institute of Management Sciences for his doctoral thesis on technology development in the disk drive industry; as well as the Production and Operations Management Society's 1991 William Abernathy Award; and the Newcomen Society's award for the best paper in business history in 1993; and also the 1995 and 2001 McKinsey Awards for articles published in the Harvard Business Review.

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Last Updated: Wed, Jan 24, 2007