Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen Passes Away
Clayton M. Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and acclaimed author and teacher passed away at the age of 67 years old on Thursday, January 23, 2020. Christensen was suffering from leukemia and passed away due to complications from cancer.
Besides his academic leanings, Christensen was also the author of ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’, which is often cited as one of the six most important books about business ever written. The book’s central premise is ‘disruptive innovation’, which has been recognized as one of the most influential business ideas of the early 21st century.
Early Life & Education
Born on April 6, 1952 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Christensen had always showed an inclination towards academics as well as a keen interest in basketball. Clayton served as the student body president at his high school, West High School. After graduating in 1970, Christensen joined Brigham Young University, where he pursued a B.A. in Economics. During college, he took a two year absence to serve as a full-time missionary for the LDS Church. His work as a missionary also saw him serve in South Korea, where he picked up Korean as a language. Christensen completed his degree in 1975 with summa cum laude honors. Following the completion of his degree, Clayton was awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, where he studied Applied Econometrics and received an M.Phil in 1977. He was also the starting center on the men’s basketball team during his time at Oxford.
Following the completion of his M.Phil, Christensen returned to the U.S. in 1977 to pursue his MBA at Harvard Business School, graduating in 1979 with a high distinction.
Life and Career
Christensen’s first foray into the professional world began with working as a consultant and project manager at Boston Consultancy Group. Post three years of working, he took a one year leave from BCG to work in Washington D.C. as an assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, after he was named a White House Fellow in 1982.
Christensen collaborated with professors from MIT to found Ceramics Process Systems Corporation in 1984, and served as the director and CEO through the late 1980s. However, he decided to return to academia and resigned from his position as the Director and went on to pursue a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from Harvard University, which he received in 1992. Post completion of his doctorate, Christensen joined Harvard Business School as a faculty and set the record for achieving the rank of full professor at the business school in just six years.
As a professor at Harvard Business School, Christensen developed and taught the “Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise” elective course in the business school’s MBA curriculum. He’s also designed the online course, “Disruptive Strategy”, where he’s been able to engage more than 5,000 learners, which is more than 10% of the online learners till date.
Talking about Clayton Christensen’s contributions to academia, Dean Nitin Nohria said:
“Clayton Christensen was one of the world’s greatest scholars on innovation and a remarkable person who had a profound influence on his students and colleagues. His research and writings transformed the way aspiring MBAs, industries, and companies look at management. He was a beloved professor and role model whose brilliant teaching and wisdom inspired generations of students and young academics. “
Beyond academics, Christensen is also the founder of Innosight LLC, a consulting and training firm, which he founded in 2000. In 2005, he came together with his colleague Mark W. Johnson to launch Innosight Ventures, a management consulting firm, to focus on investing in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia. In 2007, he co-founded Rose Park Advisors LLC with his eldest son, Matthew Christensen. The company is an investment firm focused on identifying investment opportunities by applying the framework of disruptive innovation, a term coined by Christensen in his book, ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’. He is the founder of the Christensen Institute, a non-profit think tank, based in San Francisco Bay Area in California, which applies his theories to solve issues in sectors including healthcare and education. Christensen has also served on the board of directors at Tata Consultancy Services, Franklin Covey, and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Clayton Christensen is the author behind a number of books, including the critically-acclaimed, ‘How Will You Measure Your Life? The Innovator’s Dilemma’, which has been awarded the Global Business Book Award for the best business book of the year in 1997. The book also gained a lot of popularity due to the term ‘Disruptive Innovation’, which often required Christensen to write articles about it due to constant misinterpretation.
How the academic world has reacted to his passing
A number of business leaders and colleagues in academia, who were inspired by Christensen’s work, have expressed their condolences on hearing about his demise.
Kim B. Clark, who was the Harvard Business School Dean from 1995 to 2005 and was Christensen’s doctoral advisor said:
“Clayton both taught and epitomized Harvard Business School’s mission of educating leaders who make a difference in the world. He was a teacher in the truest sense of the word. He cared deeply about ideas and concepts, and sought to help his students—whether in the classroom or in his writings—to think harder and more creatively, and to act more effectively and powerfully. He had a profound influence on his students primarily, however, because he cared about them. He loved his students and they felt it.”
Steven Blank, who’s an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford, as well as a lecturer at the Haas School of Business, tweeted:
The thoughts and prayers of the entire Crack The MBA team are with Clayton Christensen’s family.
