Stuart Hart

Biography

Stuart L. Hart is one of the world''s top authorities on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, he is "one of the founding fathers of the ''base of the pyramid'' economic theory." He is the S.C. Johnson Chair Emeritus in Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor Emeritus of Management at Cornell University''s Johnson Graduate School of Management, where he founded the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. He also serves as distinguished fellow at the William Davidson Institute (University of Michigan), founder and president of Enterprise for a Sustainable World, and founding director of the Emergent Institute in Bangalore, India.

Before joining Cornell in 2003, Hart was the Hans Zulliger Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise and professor of strategic management at the University of North Carolina''s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he founded the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and the Base of the Pyramid Learning Laboratory. Previously, he taught corporate strategy at the University of Michigan''s Ross School of Business and was the founding director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program (CEMP), now the Erb Institute''s Dual Master''s Program.

Professor Hart has published over 70 papers and authored or edited seven books, with over 15,000 Google Scholar citations. His work has appeared in leading scholarly journals, including Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, and Management Science, as well as leading practitioner journals, such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Academy of Management Executive, Strategy+Business, and Foreign Affairs.

His 1995 article "A Natural Resource-Based View of the Firm" is the most highly cited academic work in the field of sustainable enterprise. In addition, he wrote the seminal article "Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World," which won the McKinsey Award for Best Article in Harvard Business Review in 1997, and helped launch the movement for corporate sustainability. With C.K. Prahalad, Hart also wrote the path-breaking 2002 article "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," which provided the first articulation of how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. With Ted London, Hart is also the author of a newly released book entitled Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid. His best-selling book, Capitalism at the Crossroads, published in 2005, was selected by Cambridge University as one of the 50 top books of all time on sustainability; the third edition of the book was published in 2010.

Professor Hart has received numerous honors and awards for his work in the area of sustainable enterprise. In addition to the 1997 McKinsey Award, his 2001 paper "Do Corporate Global Environmental Standards Create or Destroy Market Value? (with G. Dowell and B. Yeung) won the Moskowitz Prize for outstanding research in the field of socially responsible investing. In addition, he was recognized as a "Faculty Pioneer" by the World Resources Institute in 1999 for his work in integrating environmental and social issues into the management education curriculum. In 2002, he won the Gerald R. Barrett Award as the faculty member who contributed the most to the MBA Program at UNC through his scholarship, teaching, and service. He has served as consultant, advisor, or management educator for dozens of corporations and organizations, including Dupont, S.C. Johnson, General Electric, Baxter Healthcare, Wal Mart, the World Economic Forum, and the Clinton Global Initiative. He is an internationally recognized speaker and has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses on the topic of sustainable business around the world.

Stuart Hart earned his bachelor''s degree from the University of Rochester (general science), master''s degree from Yale University''s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (environmental management), and PhD from the University of Michigan (planning and strategy).

Recent Courses

• AEM 9900 - Doctoral-Level Thesis Research
• AEM 7900 - Graduate-Level Thesis Research
• AEM 8900 - Master''s Level Thesis Research

Academic Degrees

• Ph D University of Michigan, 1983
• MFS Yale University, 1976
• BA University of Rochester, 1974