Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Business,

#501

David R. Hekman

#50568

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

David R. Hekman is an associate professor of organizational leadership and information analytics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Hekman's research focuses on improving organizational health, including the demographic pay gap and the demographic power gap. His work has been written about in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, and Forbes.

#502

Maurice Nelles

#40948

Overall Influence

1906 - 2011 (105 years)

Maurice Nelles was an engineer, business executive and professor. Early life and education Nelles was born in Madison, South Dakota. Nelles earned a bachelor's degree in 1927 and a master's degree in 1928, both from the University of South Dakota and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1934. While at Harvard, he held the Charles A. Coffin Fellowship and the George H. Emerson and Harvard scholarships.

#503

Debra Ringold

#83481

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Debra Jones Ringold is a professor at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University and is a marketing research consultant. She was selected to advise the U.S. Census Bureau on methods for improving Census participation, data collection methodology and communication of Census data to the public.

#504

Bart Cambré

#78363

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Bart Cambré is a Belgian organizational theorist, Associate Professor of Business Research Methods and Research director at the Antwerp Management School, and consultant, known for his work on voluntary and temporary organizations.

#505

Henrik Cronqvist

#56381

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Henrik Cronqvist is the Robert J. and Carolyn A. Waltos Dean and Professor of Economics of the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California, a position he has held since August 2022. He previously served as a professor of finance, Bank of America scholar, and vice dean for faculty and research at the University of Miami School of Business, where he conducted interdisciplinary research and taught finance and management courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

#506

L. Richter-egger Dana

#108779

Overall Influence

#507

Frank Allen Sloan

#108823

Overall Influence

#508

Patrick Deane

#37079

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Patrick Deane is a Canadian scholar and university administrator, currently serving as the 21st Principal of Queen's University. He was previously the acting president of the University of Winnipeg , the Vice-principal at Queen's University and the 7th President of McMaster University .

#509

Bruno Solnik

#85693

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Bruno Solnik was a professor of finance at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong. He was academic director of the HKUST-NYU Master in Global Finance. He is also distinguished emeritus professor of finance at HEC Paris.

#510

Laurie Cohen

#82007

Overall Influence

Laurie Cohen is a British academic. She is a professor of work and organisation at the Nottingham University Business School. Cohen is the editor-in-chief of Work, Employment & Society. She completed a B.A. at Colgate University. Cohen earned a postgraduate certificate and M.A. at Sheffield City Polytechnic and a Ph.D. at Sheffield Hallam University.

#511

John R. Broderick

#62805

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

John R. Broderick is an American academic administrator who served as the eighth president of Old Dominion University from 2008 to 2021. As president, he guided the University's six colleges, more than 10 economic development and research centers, and numerous partnerships with government, military and business organizations and agencies. He oversaw an operating budget in excess of $526 million and more than 2,500 faculty and staff members. More than $338 million in new buildings and building renovations have been authorized or completed under his tenure.

#512

Julian Mark Birkinshaw

#109354

Overall Influence

#513

Lorraine Eden

#80650

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Lorraine Eden is Professor Emerita of Management in the Mays Business School of Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. She also holds a joint appointment as a research professor in the Texas A&M School of Law. Dr. Eden is an expert in the field of International Transfer Pricing, which is the pricing of products that move between subunits of Multinational Enterprises .

#514

Vithala R. Rao

#101735

Overall Influence

Vithala R. Rao is the Deane Malott Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing and Quantitative Methods at Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. He is known for his work on marketing research, conjoint analysis and multidimensional scaling. He is a Fellow of the American Marketing Association.

#515

David Yermack

#102222

Overall Influence

David Yermack is an American academic who serves as a professor of finance at the New York University Stern School of Business, and adjunct professor of law at New York University School of Law. His areas of research are corporate governance and law and economics. He has a PhD in business economics from Harvard as well as four further degrees in business and law from Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School.

#516

Edward N. Coffman

#94588

Overall Influence

1942 - 2014 (72 years)

Edward N. Coffman was an American accounting scholar and Professor of accounting at Virginia Commonwealth University. Coffman was especially known for his work on accounting history: its definition, relevance, and methodology.

#517

Trip Hawkins

#87401

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

William Murray "Trip" Hawkins III is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate. Career A fan of the Strat-O-Matic Football pen and paper games, Hawkins started his first business as a teenager trying to create a knockoff version. He borrowed $5,000 from his father to start up the venture and advertised his game in NFL Game Programs, but the business failed. Eventually, he received his first computer and became interested in creating a digital football game, because it would allow players to avoid the challenging math of the game, which was all handled internally.

#518

Luc A. Laeven

#109921

Overall Influence

#519

Pierre Friedlingstein

#109990

Overall Influence

Pierre Friedlingstein is Professor and Chair in Mathematical Modelling of the Climate System at the University of Exeter, and Research Director at the Laboratoire de Météorologie dynamique , Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique , France.

#520

Hwang Woo-suk

#14796

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Hwang Woo-suk is a South Korean veterinarian and researcher. He was a professor of theriogenology and biotechnology at Seoul National University until he was dismissed on March 20, 2006. He was considered a pioneering expert in stem cell research and even called the "Pride of Korea". However, he became infamous around November 2005 for fabricating a series of stem cell experiments that were published in high-profile journals, the case known as the Hwang affair.

#521

Eric D. Green

#34716

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Eric D. Green is an American genomics researcher who had significant involvement in the Human Genome Project. He is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health , a position he has held since 2009.

#522

James R. Bailey

#79922

Overall Influence

James Russell Bailey is an American business scholar, a professor of management and Hochberg Professorial Fellow of Leadership Development at George Washington University and Fellow in the Centre of Management Development at London Business School. He is the editor-in-chief of the Academy of Management Learning and Education.

#523

André Spicer

#35606

Overall Influence

André Spicer is a New Zealand academic, Dean, and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bayes Business School, City, University of London. He is an expert in the fields of Organisational Behaviour, Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility, and is the founding director of ETHOS: The Centre for Responsible Enterprise at Bayes.

#524

Sandra A. Waddock

#110610

Overall Influence

#525

Wallace Loh

#16417

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Wallace Dao-kui Loh is a Peruvian/American university administrator. He was the president of the University of Maryland, College Park, from 2010 until 2020. Early life Loh was born in Shanghai to a prominent family. His grandparents owned five blocks' worth of downtown Shanghai property, and his father was a diplomat. In 1949, when Mao Zedong took over China after the Communist Revolution, the Loh family sought asylum in Lima, Peru. He went to the United States for college, earning a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College. He later earned a master's degree from Cornell where he was elected for membership in the Telluride House, a Ph.D.

#526

William H. Beaver

#111068

Overall Influence

#527

Rickson Gracie

#59348

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Rickson Gracie is a Brazilian 9th-degree red belt in Gracie jiu-jitsu and a retired mixed martial artist. He is a member of the Gracie family: the third oldest son of Hélio Gracie, brother to Rorion and Relson Gracie, and half-brother to Rolker, Royce, Robin and Royler Gracie. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was widely considered to be the best fighter of the Gracie clan, and one of the toughest in the world. In July 2017, he was promoted to red belt, the highest ranking in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but denied the rank as he had not yet met JJGF time in rank requirements, keeping the belt for when he d...

#528

Rayford Ball

#111159

Overall Influence

#529

Merridee Bujaki

#87345

Overall Influence

Dr. Merridee Bujaki is a tenured professor of accounting at the University of Ottawa located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In 2005, she became tenured as a full-time professor. She is also the Secretary-Treasurer for the Association of Professors at the University of Ottawa and VP of Communications for the Canadian Academic Accounting Association. Bujaki's primary activities are accounting and organizational behavior research.

#530

William J. Rothwell

#84697

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Willam J. Rothwell is a PhD, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, RODC, CPTD fellow, FLMI, and Distinguished Professor of Workforce Education and Development in the Department of Learning and Performance Systems at Pennsylvania State University. His research includes works in competency modeling, specifically the American Society for Training and Development Competency Model.

#531

J. Jerry Kaneko

#111621

Overall Influence

#532

Adlai Wertman

#95435

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Adlai Wertman is the David C. Bohnett Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He is also the founding director of the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab at Marshall, a center focused on using business education and resources to address global social, environmental and health challenges.

#533

Yves Gendron

#103368

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Yves Gendron is a Canadian accounting academic at Laval University in Quebec. He is a qualitative researcher, largely known for his studies in corporate governance, social accountability of auditors, and professional legitimacy. He is co-editor-in-chief of Critical Perspectives on Accounting.

#534

Alexander Ljungqvist

#97140

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Alexander Ljungqvist is a Swedish economist, educator, scholar, writer, and speaker. He is a professor of finance at the Stockholm School of Economics, where he is the inaugural holder of the Stefan Persson Family Chair in Entrepreneurial Finance. His areas of expertise include corporate finance, investment banking, initial public offerings, entrepreneurial finance, private equity, venture capital, corporate governance, and asset pricing. Professor Ljungqvist teaches Master's, MBA, and executive courses in private equity and venture capital and a PhD course in corporate finance.

#535

Michael J. Marquardt

#95323

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Michael J. Marquardt is an American academic. He is a professor of Human Resource Development and International Affairs at George Washington University. He was the co-founder and first President of the World Institute of Action Learning , a leading organization for certifying action learning coaches.

#536

Douglas J. Cumming

#112421

Overall Influence

#537

L. Randolph Lowry III

#38536

Overall Influence

L. Randolph Lowry III, also known as Randy Lowry, is an American academic administrator. He was the President of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee from 2005 to 2021. Early life Lowry was born in Oregon and grew up in Long Beach, California. He graduated with a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in public administration from Pepperdine University. He obtained his J.D. from Hamline University.

#538

Jonathan L. Rogers

#112558

Overall Influence

Jonathan L. Rogers is an American accounting scholar who holds the Tisone Endowed Chair of Accounting at the University of Colorado-Boulder's Leeds School of Business. Early career Rogers received his bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. Subsequently, he worked as a certified management accountant and a certified financial manager . He then entered the PhD in accounting from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his PhD in 2005.

#539

Russell Cropanzano

#112058

Overall Influence

Russell Cropanzano is an American management scholar. As of 2022, he is a professor of organizational behavior at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. Education and career Cropanzano gained a BA in psychology from Louisiana State University and an MA from Southern Methodist University . His doctorate in industrial/organizational psychology is from Purdue University ; his dissertation is titled "A Conceptual Analysis of Organizational Plans".

#540

Rebel A. Cole

#100765

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Rebel A. Cole is the Lynn Eminent Scholar Professor of Finance in the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, where he has taught since August 2016. He teaches graduate-level classes in corporate finance and financial institutions.

#541

Gil Amelio

#85820

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Gilbert Frank Amelio is an American technology executive. Amelio worked at Bell Labs, Fairchild Semiconductor, and the semiconductor division of Rockwell International, and was also the CEO of National Semiconductor and Apple Computer.

#542

Yehuda Baruch

#113181

Overall Influence

#543

George P. Huber

#113236

Overall Influence

#544

David Banister

#113419

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

#545

Sarah Cleaveland

Sarah Cleaveland

#17363

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Sarah Cleaveland is a veterinary surgeon and Professor of Comparative Epidemiology at the University of Glasgow. Education Cleaveland obtained a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Cambridge in 1988 followed by a PhD from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 1996 for research on canine distemper and rabies in the Serengeti of Tanzania. During this time she was a postgraduate student at the Institute of Zoology in Regent's Park supervised by Chris Dye, Steve Albon and James Kirkwood.

#546

Todd Alexander Litman

#113440

Overall Influence

#547

Stephen Duckett

Stephen Duckett

#41390

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Stephen John Duckett is a health economist and think-tanker who has occupied many leadership roles in health services in both Australia and Canada, including as Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. He is current health program director at the Grattan Institute, an Australian public policy think tank, Emeritus Professor of Health Policy at La Trobe University, and Chairperson of South Australia's Health Performance Council.

#548

Özalp Özer

#47564

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Özalp Özer is an American business professor specializing in pricing science and operations research. He is the Ashbel Smith Professor of Management Science at the Naveen Jindal School of Management and also currently serves as an affiliated faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

#549

Elias G. Carayannis

#111465

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Elias G. Carayannis is a Greek-American economist who is presently a full Professor of Science, Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the George Washington University School of Business in Washington, D.C.

#550

Norbert Putnam

#83310

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Norbert Auvin Putnam is an American musician, studio owner and record producer who was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2019. He got his start as a bass player in the studio house band in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and from there was recruited to move to Nashville in 1965. He became a successful session player on recordings by artists including Roy Orbison, Al Hirt, Henry Mancini, Dan Fogelberg, Linda Ronstadt, J. J. Cale, Tony Joe White, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Michael Card, Ian & Sylvia and Bobby Goldsboro. Putnam published a memoir in 2017 entitled Music Lessons Vol. 1: a Music...

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