Thomas J. Tierney (born 5 March 1954) is an American business executive and corporate writer, who is the co-founder of the nonprofit

Bridgespan Group The Bridgespan Group is a U.S. nonprofit organization in Boston, Massachusetts that provides management consulting to nonprofits and philanthropists. In addition to consulting, Bridgespan makes case studies freely available on its website and publ ...

that provides management consulting to nonprofits and philanthropists. He has been chairman of

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

since July 2015. Tierney is cited by the book ''Management Consultancy in the 21st Century'' as a specialist in customer service and marketing.

Early life

Tierney was born in San Francisco, California in 1954. Tierney earned a BA in Economics from the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

in 1976, and an MBA from the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

in 1980.

Career

He joined

Bain & Company Bain & Company is an American management consulting company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm provides advice to public, private, and non-profit organizations. One of the Big Three management consultancies, Bain & Company was fou ...

in 1980, and served as the managing director of its San Francisco office from 1987 to 1992. In June 1992 he was appointed chief executive officer of Bain & Company, a post which he held until January 2000, during which time the company grew significantly, venturing into business internationally and generating revenues six times what they had been. In 1998, Tierney co-founded The Bridgespan Group, described by

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...

as an "independent, nonprofit affiliate of Bain & Company designed to provide general management consulting services to foundations and nonprofit organizations". He launched the organization in 1999, and was appointed its chairman. In March 2003, Tierney was appointed an Independent Director at

, and he has been its Lead Independent Director since April 2012. Aside from his Bridgespan and eBay position, Tierney has been the Director of

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...

, director of the

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...

, and has held numerous other posts on non-profit boards, including the

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and ...

, The United Way of the Bay Area, the Committee for Economic Development and the

WGBH Educational Foundation The WGBH Educational Foundation (also known as GBH since August 2020) is an American public broadcasting group based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1951, it holds the licenses to all of the PBS member stations in Massachusetts, and op ...

. He has also served administratively with the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

. Tierney is still associated with Harvard Business School, where he was appointed chair of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative Advisory Board in January 2009. He occasionally lectures at the school and has contributed numerous articles to '' The Harvard Business Review'' and books, including

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

's ''Learning From The Chief Executive Officer'' and ''Aligning the Stars'' (2002), the latter co-authored with Jay W. Lorsch, which documents business strategy and organization. In 2011, he co-authored ''Give Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results'' with Joel L. Fleishman. Tierney said of ''Give Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results'': "The basic premise behind the book is that there must be ideas relevant to philanthropy that have been proven over time, ideas that were as useful to

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

as they are to

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

. One of the reasons o-authorJoel leishmanand I teamed up was that he has done extensive research on twentieth-century philanthropy, a lot of which he used in ''The Foundation''".

References

American corporate directors Living people American business writers Harvard Business School faculty Harvard Business School alumni American marketing businesspeople University of California, Davis alumni American nonprofit chief executives American nonprofit businesspeople Directors of eBay Businesspeople from Boston 1954 births {{US-business-bio-1950s-stub