Biography of Michael Porter

The leading authority on competitive strategy and international competitiveness, he is Harvard Business School's C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration. One of the school's most popular teachers, he also lectures in the school's senior executive programs.

Porter speaks to government and business audiences around the world, including AT&T, First Boston, and Procter & Gamble. Focusing on necessary strategies, he tailors his message to accommodate the unique needs of your audience. While particularly relevant for organizations in the Pacific Rim, his customized approach and unique information helps organizations around the globe.

Important Author of 15 books and more than 50 articles, his Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors is the leading work in its field. In its 45th printing, it has been translated into 15 languages. A companion book, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, is in its 19th printing. In his latest book, On Competition (Harvard Business School Publishing 1998), Porter has compiled 13 articles from the Harvard Business Review. Collectively, these pieces outline Porter's perspective on modern competition.

In 1990, his The Competitive Advantage of Nations introduced a theory of how nations compete; both BusinessWeek and The Financial Times named it one of the top ten business books that year. In 1992, he wrote Capital Choices: Changing the Way America Invests in Industry and he has written on the relationship between competitiveness and the environment. His most recent initiative is a study of economic development in America's inner cities, which Harvard Business Review published as "The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City."

President Reagan appointed Porter to the President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, chairing the group's strategy committee. He maintains an active role in economic policy with Congress, business and foreign governments, including India, New Zealand, Canada and Portugal. He is leading an effort to develop a regional strategy for the presidents of the seven Central American countries. He also serves on the boards of directors of Lotus Development Corporation, Alpha-Beta Technologies and Parametric Technology Corporation.

Porter joined Harvard Business School in 1973 and became one of the school's youngest tenured professors ever. Honored with numerous titles and awards, he earned Harvard's David A. Wells Prize in Economics for his research in industrial organization, two McKinsey Awards and many others.

He earned a B.S.E. with honors in aerospace and mechanical engineering from Princeton University in 1969, an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard Business School and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University.