David Upton

David Upton was elected to the prestigious American Standard Chair of Operations Management at Oxford University in June 2009, where he also serves on the Governing Body of Christ Church College.   For twenty years previous, he was a tenured faculty member at the Harvard where he was the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration.

His research centers on Operations Improvement and Innovation, Strategy, and Information Technology.  He is the author of numerous books and articles, most recently Pursuing the Operations Edge (Wiley, 2004) and the much-acclaimed Radically Simple IT, (HBR, 2008) describing a revolutionary way of improving operations and information systems in living, breathing organizations.   His research spans the globe – from India to China, from the US to South America.  Most recently, his work focuses on the rapid improvement of service and knowledge-based organizations.  David is also a professional engineer, starting his career working on the shop-floor of manufacturing plants.  He spent his early research years working on artificial intelligence and the Internet during its initial development.

David is a compelling presenter, winning Harvard’s Apgar award for Innovation in Teaching.  He is consistently rated the best instructor in the wide range of operations and IT courses and presentations he runs.   At Harvard, he led the first-year MBA courses in Technology and Operations Management and served as faculty chair of Harvard's executive course on Operations Strategy and Improvement for fifteen years.  He also taught the Advanced Management Program for senior managers as well as the China-based courses on IT and Operations with Tsinghua University in Beijing. More recently, he led Harvard’s course for CEOs in the Young Presidents Organization. Praise for David’s work with companies and broader audiences is widespread.

David has been a director of Tech Data  - a Tampa-based Fortune 100 IT distributor and service provider since 1997.   He has offices in both the UK and the US, and is widely consulted by TV and news organizations.  He was the subject of the one-hour TV special “Profiles on Leaders in Information Technology” for his work on new approaches to the rapid innovation of operations and IT.    He lives in Oxford, UK and Boston, MA.