2021 Thinkers50 Ranking & Awards
London, November 15-16, 2021
2021 Ranking of Management Thinkers
Special Recognition
Founders’ Award
The Thinkers50 Founders’ Award, introduced in 2019, recognizes individuals in the world of business ideas who provide industry leadership and inspiration. It acknowledges the invaluable contribution of the architects who lay the foundations for ideas to flourish. The Thinkers50 Founders’ Award salutes the distinguished thinkers whose contributions to management thinking have made it what it is today.
WINNER
‘Mohi is a practitioner who realises the power of ideas,’ says Thinkers50 cofounder Des Dearlove. ‘We have known him for more than a decade and have always admired and been inspired by his enthusiastic embrace of the latest management thinking and his willingness to put ideas to work first at Fujitsu and now at Shimizu. He puts collaboration and innovation at the heart of all his endeavours.’
Lifetime Achievement
The Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award acknowledges an exceptional individual whose work has made an important contribution to global thought leadership over an extended period. This person has brought insights that challenge the way we think about management. Their work must be global, original and embraced by practitioners.
WINNER
Philip Kotler is truly the father of modern marketing. Marketing Management has been the marketing bible for generations of students throughout the world. But, much more than that, he has carried on over many decades as a pioneer of marketing in new industries and activities. He has remained relevant, engaged and curious. To influence practice and theory over such an extended period is a remarkable achievement and to do this through genuinely groundbreaking ideas is even more so. It is a great thrill for us at Thinkers50 to celebrate Philip’s work.
2021 Distinguished Achievement Awards
& Shortlisted Nominees
BREAKTHROUGH IDEA
Breakthrough Idea Award
dedicated to the legacy of CK Prahalad
The Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award celebrates a Eureka moment in management. It is given for a radical idea, which has the potential to forever change the way we think about business. From Taylorism to the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, new ideas have challenged what we know about the world. This award is dedicated to the legacy of CK Prahalad, who proved there is nothing so practical as a great idea.
WINNER
Leon Prieto and Simone Phipps for Cooperative Advantage
Authors of African American Management History: Insights on Gaining a Cooperative Advantage
SHORTLISTED
- Elizabeth Altman for Ecosystems in Businesses and Organizations
- Todd Bridgman & Stephen Cummings for Sustainable Management
- Navi Radjou for Conscious Business
- Megan Reitz & John Higgins for Employee Activism
- Christian Sarkar for The Wicked 7
- Sandra J. Sucher & Shalene Gupta for The Power of Trust
- Andrew Winston & Paul Polman for Net Positive
DIGITAL THINKING
Digital Thinking Award
Digital technology has transformed the world of work. It has also changed the way we understand ourselves as human beings. But which thinker’s research and insights shed the newest and most original light on the new digital reality? The Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award celebrates the thinker who has done the most to convert the digital language of the 0 and 1 into useful human insights.
WINNER
Author of The Hype Machine and is the director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE)
SHORTLISTED
- Matt Beane
- François Candelon
- David De Cremer
- Kate Darling
IDEAS INTO PRACTICE
Ideas into Practice Award
There is nothing so practical as a great idea. At Thinkers50 we value new thinking that makes a meaningful contribution in the real world. Equally, we admire organizations that are open to new ideas no matter what their source. The T50 Ideas into Practice Award celebrates an organization putting new ideas to work.
WINNER
Louise van Rhyn for Symphonia & Partners for Possibility
Louise van Rhyn is a social entrepreneur and the designer of the Partners for Possibility (PfP) programme.
SHORTLISTED
- NK Chaudhary & Jaipur Rugs for their commitment to values-led growth
- Subir Chowdhury for his work in quality and the relationship between literature and leadership
- Piyush Gupta and DBS Bank with Robin Speculand for organizational transformation
- Dambisa Moyo for How Boards Work
- Marlon Parker for RLabs
- Luz Rello Sanchez for her campaigning work as founder of Change Dyslexia
- Gabriela Teasdale for the Transformation Begins with Me initiative in Paraguay
INNOVATION
Innovation Award
in partnership with Fujitsu
If necessity is the mother of invention then innovation is its nurturing father. The word innovate comes from the Latin to “make new”. It has never been more pressing, in society and organizations. The Thinkers50 Innovation Award recognizes the thinker who has contributed the most to our understanding of innovation over the last two years.
WINNER
SHORTLISTED
- Scott Anthony, Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud & Andy Parker
- Christian Busch
- Rahaf Harfoush
- Stefanie K. Johnson
- David Schonthal & Loran Nordgren
- Martin Reeves & Jack Fuller
- Tendayi Viki
LEADERSHIP
Leadership Award
Teams, corporations, and organizations of every kind, demand and require leadership. Yet the nature of that leadership and how we understand the role of the leader is constantly being reappraised. The Thinkers50 Leadership Award acknowledges thinkers who shed powerful and original new light onto this perennial and still vital subject.
WINNER
Senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and the former chairman and CEO of Best Buy
SHORTLISTED
- Todd Cherches
- Kirstin Ferguson
- Frances Frei & Anne Morriss
- Steve Goldbach & Geoff Tuff
- Morela Hernandez
- Oleg Konovalov
- Alyson Meister, Brianna Caza & Wei Zheng
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH
COACHING & MENTORING
Marshall Goldsmith Coaching & Mentoring Award
in partnership with 100 Coaches and Coaching.com
The Marshall Goldsmith Distinguished Achievement Award for Coaching & Mentoring recognizes individuals who make outstanding contributions to the field of executive coaching. In recognition of Marshall Goldsmith’s own extensive and innovative contributions to the executive coaching field he was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2018.
WINNER
SHORTLISTED
- Ayse Birsel
- Michael Bungay Stanier
- Julie Carrier
- Priscilla Gill
- Jesse Hsu
- Tracy Sinclair
- Modupe Taylor Pearce
RADAR THINKER
RADAR Thinker Award
Which of the new generation of business thinkers is most likely to shape the future of business and business thinking? Whose work has the potential to challenge the way we think about management? With the Thinkers50 Radar Award we identify and celebrate the thinker-most-likely-to.
WINNER
Chief learning officer and assistant professor of education in anesthesiology and former assistant dean of mentoring and executive director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine
SHORTLISTED
STRATEGY
Strategy Award
in partnership with the Brightline Initiative
Where you are going and how you intend to get there lie at the heart of management and leadership. Strategy is the intellectual and inspirational lifeblood of organizations. The Thinkers50 Strategy Award celebrates the very best of strategic thinking. If you were running a corporation, who would you turn to for strategic advice?
WINNER
The James G. Dinan Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, host of Charles Schwab’s popular behavioural economics podcast Choiceology, and the former president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making
SHORTLISTED
- Sangeet Paul Choudary
- David Scott Duncan
- Margaret Heffernan
- Rita McGrath
- Alex Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Fred Etiemble & Alan Smith
- Christian Rangen
- Christian Stadler, Julia Hautz, Kurt Matzler & Stephan Friedrich Von Den Eichen
TALENT
Talent Award
in partnership with Executive Networks
In ancient Greece, the talent was a unit of currency. Today, human talent has become the global currency, with organizations competing for the very best people from around the world. With the changing attitudes to work and new generations entering the workforce, the challenge now is to better understand how talented individuals work best and how they can effectively be attracted, motivated, and retained. Research into talent has never been so important and practically useful.
WINNER
SHORTLISTED
- Sheree Atcheson
- Dorie Clark
- Tsedal Neeley
- Lindsey Pollak