Community Profile

Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School
Julian Birkinshaw
Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
London Business School

Julian is Professor and Chair of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He is co-founder of the Management Lab (MLab), a Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (UK), and a Fellow of the Academy of International Business.

He has PhD and MBA degrees in Business from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Durham. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Stockholm School of Economics, 2009.

Julian's main area of expertise is in the strategy and management of large multinational corporations, and on such specific issues as corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, subsidiary-headquarters relationship, knowledge management, network organisations, and global customer management. He is the author of eleven books, including Reinventing Management (2010), Giant Steps in Management (2007), Inventuring: Why Big Companies Must Think Small (2003), Leadership the Sven-Goran Eriksson Way (2002) and Entrepreneurship in the Global Firm (2001), and over fifty articles. He is active as a consultant and executive educator to many large companies, including Rio Tinto, SAP, ABN AMRO, GSK, ABB, Ericsson, Kone, Exxon, WPP, Bombardier, Sara Lee, HSBC, Akzo Nobel, Roche, Thyssen Krupp, UBS, PWC, Coloplast, BBC and Novo Nordisk.

In 1998, Management Today profiled Julian as one of six of the “Next Generation of Management Gurus”. In 2013, he was ranked 39th in the Thinkers50 list of management gurus. He is regularly quoted in international media outlets, including CNN, the BBC, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and The Times. He speaks regularly at business conferences in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia.

Julian is co-founder with bestselling author Gary Hamel of the Management Innovation Lab (MLab), a unique partnership between academia and business that is seeking to accelerate the evolution of management.

Julian speaks on a variety of issues concerned with the strategic management of multinational corporations. These include: Reinventing Management; Business level and Corporate Strategy; the Failure of Success (why great companies get into trouble); Knowledge Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Change; Managing the Global Firm; Headquarters-Subsidiary Relationships; and Management Innovation.

Areas of Interest

- strategy and management of large multinational corporations
- corporate entrepreneurship
- innovation
- subsidiary-headquarters relationship
- knowledge management
- network organisations
- global customer management