Six from MIT Sloan honored at Thinkers50 awards

Six MIT Sloan faculty members and alumni were honored Nov. 9 at the biennial Thinkers50 awards in London. The event recognizes global leaders in management thinking through ten individual awards, a 50-entry ranking, and inductees into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame.

Erik Brynjolfsson, PhD ’91, and Andrew McAfee, SB ’88, SB ’89, LFM ’90, shared the Digital Thinking Award, which “celebrates the thinker who has done the most to transform the digital revolution into useful management insights.” They also shared the 26th spot in the Thinkers50 rankings. The pair are co-authors of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. Professor Brynjolfsson is the director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. McAfee is a principal research scientist and the co-director of the initiative.

Hal Gregersen was named to the 46th spot in the rankings. The executive director of the MIT Leadership Center and a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan, Gregersen is the co-author of 2011’s The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators.

John Kotter, SB ’68, SM ’70, was named to the 37th spot in the rankings. Kotter, who studies change management and leadership, is a professor at Harvard Business School. His most recent book is Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World.

Doug Ready was named to the 44th spot in the rankings. Ready, an MIT Sloan senior lecturer in organization effectiveness, teaches the popular MIT Sloan Executive Education course “ Building Game-Changing Organizations: Aligning Purpose, Performance, and People.”

Edgar Schein was named Nov. 2 to the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. Schein, a professor emeritus at MIT Sloan, specializes in organizational culture and careers. His books include the classic Organizational Culture and Leadership, now in its 4th edition, and Career Anchors.