Clayton Magleby Christensen (born April 6, 1952) is an American academic, business consultant and religious leader who currently serves as Business Administration Professor Kim B. Clark at Harvard Business School of Harvard University. He is famous for his theory of "disturbing innovation" - first introduced in his first book, The Innovator's Dilemma - which has been called the most influential business idea of ââthe early 21st century.
Christensen is also one of the founders of Rose Park Advisors, a venture capital company, and Innosight, a management consultant and investment firm specializing in innovation.
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Early life and education
Clayton M. Christensen was born on April 6, 1952, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the second of eight children born of Robert M. Christensen (1926-1976) and his wife Verda Mae Christensen ( nÃÆ' à © e Fuller; 1922-2004). He grew up in the neighborhood of Rose Park in Salt Lake City and attended a nearby Western High School, where he is the student organization chairman. Christensen and his brothers were raised as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
After graduating from high school in 1970, Christensen was accepted at Brigham Young University (BYU). While at BYU, he took a two-year sabbatical absence from 1971 to 1973 to serve as a voluntary full-time missionary for the LDS Church. He was assigned to serve in South Korea and became an eloquent Korean speaker. After completing his missionary service, Christensen returned to BYU, graduating in 1975 with an Honors B.A. summa cum laude in the economic field. After graduation, he received a Rhodes Scholarship and spent two years studying applied econometry at Oxford University, receiving M. Phil. in 1977. Christensen then returned to the United States and moved to Harvard University to pursue an MBA at Harvard Business School, which he earned with high distinction in 1979.
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Careers
After receiving his MBA in 1979, Christensen began working for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as a consultant and project manager. He took a leave of absence from 1982 to 1983 to work in Washington, D.C. as assistant to the US Secretary of Transportation, serving under Drew Lewis and later Elizabeth Dole. In 1984, he and several professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established a sophisticated ceramics company called Ceramics Process Systems Corporation (now known as CPS Technologies). Christensen served as president and CEO in the late 1980s, then decided to leave the company and become a university professor. He returned to Harvard for doctoral studies in business, receiving a Doctor of Business Administration in 1992. After completing his doctorate, Christensen joined the Harvard Business School faculty and set a record by winning a "full" professor's rank in just six years.
In 2000, he founded Innosight LLC, a consulting and training company. In 2005, along with his colleagues at Innosight, he launched Innosight Ventures, a venture company focused on investing in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia. In 2007, he founded Rose Park Advisors LLC (named after the neighborhood in Salt Lake City where he grew up), an investment company that applied his research as an investment strategy.
She serves on the board of directors of Tata Consultancy Services (NSE: TCS), Franklin Covey (NYSE: FC), and Becket Fund for Religious Freedom.
At HBS he taught the elective courses he designed "Building and Maintaining a Successful Company," which teaches how to build and manage successful and long-lasting companies or change existing organizations, as well as in many school executive education programs. Christensen was awarded a full professorship with tenure in 1998, and currently holds eight honorary doctorates and an honorary teacher chair at the National Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
Christensen is the best-selling author of ten books, including his seminal work The Innovator's Dilemma (1997), which received the Global Business Book Award for best business book of the year. One of the main concepts described in this book is also the most disseminated and famous: the annoying innovation. This concept has grown in interest over time since 2004, according to Google Trends data. However, due to a persistent misinterpretation, Christensen still often writes articles that try to explain the concept further. Some other books focus on specific industries and discuss social issues such as education and health care. Breaking Classes (2008) looks at the root causes of why schools are struggling and offering solutions, while the Innovator Recipes (2009) examines how to improve the American health care system. The last two books have received many awards as the best books on education and health care in their respective years of publication. The Innovator Recipes are also awarded the James A. Hamilton Award 2010, by the College of Healthcare Executives.
Personal life
Christensen lives in Belmont, Massachusetts with his wife, Christine. They have five children, including Matthew Christensen, who played college basketball at Duke University and became a member of the 2001 National Championship team. Christensen himself is an avid basketball player who stands 6a, ft. 8 at (2.03m) tall, and is the centerpiece early on the men's basketball team during his time at Oxford.
Christensen is a member of the LDS Church. From 1971 to 1973 he served as a missionary to the church in Korea and spoke Korean fluently. He has served in several leadership positions at the LDS Church. He served as a county seventy from 2002 to 2009. He also served as an advisor in the Boston Massachusetts Mission presidency and as a bishop.
Source of the article : Wikipedia