Richard Rumelt Keynote Speaker

Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management
Author of 'The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists' & 'Good Strategy/Bad Strategy'
Recognised among the top 20 thinkers around the world in strategy by Thinkers50

Richard Rumelt's Biography

Richard Rumelt is one of the most influential thinkers on strategy and management. McKinsey called him “A giant in the field of strategy.”

Throughout his career, Richard has defined the cutting edge of strategy, developing the idea that companies focusing on core skills perform best and that superior performance is not a matter of being the in the right industry, but comes from a firm’s individual excellence.

He is the author of The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists and of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. Richard’s description of Bad Strategy as empty rhetoric, a long lists of “priorities,” and goals without accompanying actions won him world-wide acclaim. His current concept of The Crux stresses the importance of working with challenges rather than wished-for outcomes. In particular, it asks that a business focus on the most important challenge it can actually resolve.

Richard is Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and was earlier on the faculty of the Harvard Business School.

He works with corporations around the world including AT&T, Shell, Telecom Italia, Kings College London, O-I Corp, The National Bank of Canada, Lukoil, Microsoft, HP, Apple, Commonwealth Bank, Intel, Medtronic, Redgate, TransAlta, and the US Army Special Operations Command.

The Thinkers50 organization recognised Richard as being among the top 20 thinkers around the world in strategy and has inducted him in their Hall of Fame.

The Crux Principle: The 7 Steps to a Powerful Strategy

The concept of challenge-based strategy and the art of defining and dealing with the crux of the situation.

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: Breaking the Bad Strategy Habit

The concept of Bad Strategy, the “kernel” at the heart of every Good Strategy, and the source of power used in successful strategies.

Industry Leadership: How It Is Gained and Lost

He brings unmatched authority on corporate strategy as the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, helping leaders cut through empty rhetoric and focus on choices that drive superior performance.
He equips executives to identify and win on their distinctive strengths, translating decades of research and teaching into clear guidance on what separates firm-level excellence from industry luck.
He sharpens leadership decision-making through his concept of “The Crux”, enabling organisations to pinpoint the most important challenge they can actually resolve and build coherent action around it.
He combines academic credibility as Professor Emeritus at UCLA Anderson and former Harvard Business School faculty with extensive advisory work to global corporations, making strategy practical, disciplined and executable.
He is recognised among the world’s top strategy thinkers by Thinkers50 and a Hall of Fame inductee, bringing audiences a rigorous, no-nonsense approach that improves focus, alignment and results.