Coimbatore Krishnarao (C.K.) Prahalad would have celebrated his 69th
birthday on August 8, 2010. He was one of the most influential and
original strategic and management thinkers of the last 50 years. He was
also a friend to strategy+business and, most significantly, a
friend and mentor to management thinkers and practitioners all around
the world — particularly in India, where he was born and educated, and
in the United States, where he lived for most of his career until he
passed away from a sudden lung illness on April 16.
Starting in 1977, Prahalad held a post as professor (the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy) at the University of Michigan’s Ross Business School, while building a body of groundbreaking work on the most significant themes in business today: strategy, emerging markets, innovation, and organizational structure. His book Competing for the Future (Harvard Business School Press, 1994), coauthored with Gary Hamel, established core competencies as a strategic enabler, and strategic intent as a managerial purpose; The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Wharton School Publishing, 2005) anticipated the remarkable growth of emerging markets; and The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-created Value through Global Networks (McGraw-Hill, 2008), coauthored with M.S. Krishnan, proposed that the most value-added corporate activity would occur across hierarchical boundaries. Along the way, C.K. wrote three of s+b’s most prescient articles: “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” (First Quarter 2002, coauthored with Stuart Hart), “The Innovation Sandbox” (Autumn 2006), and “Twenty Hubs and No HQ” (Spring 2008, coauthored with Hrishi Bhattacharyya).
To read the full, original article click on this link: The Life’s Work of a Thought Leader
Author: Art Kleiner
