VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN

World-Leading Authority on Strategic Innovation



Vijay Govindarajan, Professor of International Business and Director of the Center for Global Leadership at Tuck School of Business, is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on innovation.

Dr. Govindarajan consistently works with CEOs and top management teams in Fortune 500 companies including Boeing, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Deere, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, J.P Morgan Chase, New York Times, Procter & Gamble, Sony and Wal-Mart, among many others.

He has worked on the faculties of Harvard Business School and the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (India), and served as a visiting Professor at INSEAD (France), the International University of Japan, and Helsinki School of Economics (Finland). He has authored or co-authored several books, including the international best-sellers "Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators" and "Reverse Innovation".

He has published over 70 articles in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. One of his papers has been recognized as one of "the ten most-often cited articles" in the entire 40-year history of Academy of Management Journal.

He has been named among the "top five most respected executive coaches on strategy" by Forbes, the "top 50 management thinkers" by The London Times, the "top 20 superstars in U.S" by Management International Review, and the "top ten business school educators" by BusinessWeek. He was also named an "outstanding business school faculty member" by BusinessWeek.

Vijay Govindarajan holds an MBA and a Ph.D from Harvard Business School, where he was included in the Dean's Honor List and awarded with the Robert Bowne Prize for best thesis proposal. He is a regular keynote speaker in CEO Forums and major conferences, including the World Innovation Forum and BusinessWeek CEO Forum.

  • Innovation
  • Competitiveness
  • Emerging Markets
  • Leadership and Execution

Changing the Rules of the Global Game

We now live in an era of constant change, driven by the dynamic forces of technology, globalization, the internet, changing demographics, and shifting customer preferences. As a result, companies find that their strategies need almost constant redefinition - either because the old assumptions are no longer valid, or because the previous strategy has been imitated and neutralized by competitors.

Organizational Capabilities for Global Leadership

Securing global presence is anything but synonymous with possessing global competitive advantage. To convert global presence into global competitive advantage, an organization must pursue value creation opportunities - but pursuing these value creation opportunities requires an organization that can simultaneously optimize local responsiveness, global scale, and knowledge transfer.

Building Breakthrough Businesses

Even world-class companies with successful business models eventually hit the ceiling on growth - that's what makes emerging industries so attractive. These markets represent huge opportunities, but because they lack a proven formula for making a profit they can be risky and expensive, with dire consequences for failure.