Arie de Geus (born 1930, died 2019) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

business executive A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations g ...

business theorist Organizational theory refers to the set of interrelated concepts that involve the sociological study of the structures and operations of formal social organizations. Organizational theory also attempts to explain how interrelated units of organiz ...

and scenario planner, who was the head of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

's Strategic Planning Group and was a public speaker.

Life and work

De Geus was born in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

in 1930. He joined Royal Dutch/Shell in 1951 and remained there until his retirement in 1989. During his tenure as head of Shell's Strategic Planning Group, the department made important advancements to the ideas of

portfolio analysis Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversificatio ...

(i.e. Directional Policy Matrix) and

scenario planning Scenario planning, scenario thinking, scenario analysis, scenario prediction and the scenario method all describe a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and gener ...

. Other key members of the team were Kees van der Heijden, Peter Schwartz, and

Pierre Wack Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

. After he retired, Mr. de Geus was a visiting fellow of

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degrees in management and finance, MBA and PhD). Its motto is " ...

and has worked with

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

's Center for Organizational Learning. A popular quote of his: “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”See also Adrian de Geus (1998) as cited in: Lesley Partridge (1999) ''Creating Competitive Advantage with HRM''. p. 128

Publications

* "The Living Company" Nicholas Brealey, London (1997) Articles, a selection: * "The Living Company," ''Harvard Business Review'', 1997; winner of the McKinsey Award * "Companies: What Are They?" Lecture Royal Society of Arts, 1995 * "Planning as Learning" ''Harvard Business Review'' (1988)

References

External links

Arie de Geus
at ariedegeus.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geus, Arie de 1930 births Living people Businesspeople from Rotterdam Dutch business theorists