Rita Gunther McGrath (born July 28, 1959 in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
) is an American strategic management scholar and
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...
of
management
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activitie ...
at the
Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School (CBS) is the business school of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1916, Columbia Business School is one of six Ivy League business schools and is one of the oldest bus ...
. She is known for her work on strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship, including the development of
discovery-driven planning.
McGrath is also the founder of the innovation platfor
Valize
Life and work
McGrath graduated
magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
from
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
in 1981 and earned a Masters of Public Administration from the
in 1982. In 1993, she completed her
Ph.D. at
The Wharton School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in P ...
(
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
) with the dissertation, entitled ''Developing New Competence in Established Organizations'' consistent with her longstanding interest in corporate ventures and innovation.
McGrath started her career working in government and the political arena and founded two entrepreneurial startups. After her graduation in 1993, she joined Columbia as assistant professor of management, was promoted to associate professor of management in 1998, and recently became a full professor in the Faculty of Executive Education. In 2014, she was elected Deputy Dean of the
Strategic Management Society Fellows
In 1999, McGrath received the "Best Paper" Academy Of Management Review, in 2001 the
Maurice Holland "best paper" award from the
Industrial Research Institute
Innovation Research Interchange (IRI) is a division of the National Association of Manufacturers, a nonprofit association based in Washington, D. C., United States. IRI was founded as a private non-profit in 1938 and merged with the NAM in 2022. I ...
, and later the McKinsey 'best paper' award from the Strategic Management Society for McGrath and Nerkar, Real options reasoning and a new look at the R&D strategy of pharmaceutical firms.
In 2009, she was elected fellow of the
Strategic Management Society, and in 2013 of the International Academy of Management. In 2013 she also received the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award in Strategy. She was named one of the top 20 thinkers in 2011, and one of the top 10 thinkers in 2013 by Thinkers50.
In 2019, McGrath was ranked the #5 most influential management thinker in the world by Thinkers50.
McGrath is the bestselling author of five books and is one of the most widely published authors in the Harvard Business Review, including “Discovery Driven Planning” (1995), which was recognized as an early articulation of today’s “lean” startup philosophy and has been cited by
Clayton Christensen
Clayton Magleby Christensen (April 6, 1952January 23, 2020) was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of "disruptive innovation", which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century. ...
as “one of the most important ideas in management—ever.”
She is the founder of the consulting firm Valize and maintains the weekly newsletter Thought Sparks on LinkedIn.
Honors and awards
* 2016 Theory to Practice award from the Vienna Strategy Forum
* 2013 Distinguished Achievement Award in Strategy from Thinkers50
* In both 2011 and 2013, she was named one of the top 20 thinkers by Thinkers 50, one of the world's most prestigious rankings of management thinkers
* In 2019, she was ranked the #5 most influential leadership thinker in the world by Thinkers50
Selected publications
Books
* McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. ''The entrepreneurial mindset: Strategies for continuously creating opportunity in an age of uncertainty.'' Vol. 284. Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
* McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. ''MarketBusters: 40 Strategic moves that drive exceptional business growth.'' Harvard Business School Press, 2005.
* McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. ''Discovery Driven Growth: A breakthrough process to reduce risk and seize opportunity.'' Harvard Business Review Press, 2009.
* McGrath, Rita Gunther ''The End of Competitive Advantage. How to keep your strategy moving as fast as your business.'' Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.
*McGrath, Rita Gunther. ''Seeing Around Corners. How to spot inflection points in business before they happen.'' Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.
Notable articles
* McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “Discovery-driven planning.” Harvard Business Review (1995)
*McGrath, Rita Gunther, Ian C. MacMillan, and Sankaran Venkataraman. "Defining and developing competence: a strategic process paradigm." ''Strategic Management Journal'' 16.4 (1995): 251-275.
* McGrath, Rita Gunther. "A real options logic for initiating technology positioning investments." ''Academy of Management Review'' 22.4 (1997): 974-996.
*McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “Discovering new points of differentiation.” Harvard Business Review (1997)
* McGrath, Rita Gunther. "Falling forward: Real options reasoning and entrepreneurial failure." ''Academy of Management review'' 24.1 (1999): 13-30.
* McGrath, Rita Gunther. "Exploratory learning, innovative capacity, and managerial oversight." ''Academy of Management Journal'' 44.1 (2001): 118-131.
*McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “MarketBusting: strategies for exceptional business growth.” Harvard Business Review (2005)
*McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. “How to get unstuck.” Harvard Business Review (2009)
*McGrath, Rita Gunther. “Failing by design.” Harvard Business Review (2011)
*McGrath, Rita Gunther. “Transient advantage.” Harvard Business Review (2013)
*McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ryan McManus. “Discovery-Driven Digital Transformation.” Harvard Business Review (2020)
References
External links
*
Columbia directory page
{{DEFAULTSORT:McGrath, Rita Gunther
Columbia University faculty
American business writers
Women business writers
Living people
Barnard College alumni
1959 births
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University alumni
American business theorists