The Most Influential People Across History
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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Management,
#1
W. Edwards Deming
#187
Overall Influence
1903 - 1993 (90 years)
William Edwards Deming was an American business theorist, composer, economist, industrial engineer, management consultant, statistician, and writer. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the United States Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He is also known as the father of the quality movement and was hugely influential in post-WWII Japan. He is best known for his theories of management.
Go to Profile#2
Peter Senge
#1091
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Peter Michael Senge is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning. He is known as the author of the book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization .
Go to Profile#3
James E. Webb
#755
Overall Influence
1906 - 1992 (86 years)
James Edwin Webb was an American government official who served as Undersecretary of State from 1949 to 1952. He was the second Administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961, to October 7, 1968. Webb led NASA from the beginning of the Kennedy administration through the end of the Johnson administration, thus overseeing each of the critical first crewed missions throughout the Mercury and Gemini programs until days before the launch of the first Apollo mission. He also dealt with the Apollo 1 fire.
Go to Profile#4
Jeffrey Pfeffer
#4877
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Jeffrey Pfeffer is an American business theorist and the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and is considered one of today's most influential management thinkers.
Go to Profile#5
Warren Bennis
#2120
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Warren Gamaliel Bennis was an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies. Bennis was University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California.
Go to Profile#6
Thomas H. Davenport
#2304
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Thomas Hayes "Tom" Davenport, Jr. is an American academic and author specializing in analytics, business process innovation, knowledge management, and artificial intelligence. He is currently the President’s Distinguished Professor in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a Fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, Co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics.
Go to Profile#7
Peter Drucker
#20742
Overall Influence
1909 - 2005 (96 years)
Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an Austrian American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of modern management theory. He was also a leader in the development of management education, and invented the concepts known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as "the founder of modern management".
Go to Profile#8
Kenneth R. Andrews
#4693
Overall Influence
1916 - 2005 (89 years)
Kenneth Richmond Andrews , was an American academic who, along with H. Igor Ansoff and Alfred D. Chandler, was credited with the foundational role in introducing and popularizing the concept of business strategy.
Go to Profile#9
Thomas W. Malone
#3627
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Thomas W. Malone is an American organizational theorist, management consultant, and the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Biography Malone received his BA in applied mathematics, graduating magna cum laude from Rice University. He earned his MS in engineering-economic systems, and his Ph.D. in cognitive and social psychology, both from Stanford University.
Go to Profile#10
Dave Ulrich
#9814
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and a partner at the RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 30 books. He edited Human Resource Management 1990-1999, served on editorial board of 4 other journals and on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller (16 years), has spoken to large audiences in 90 countries; performed workshops for over half of the Fortune 200; coached successful business leaders, and is a Distinguished Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources.
Go to Profile#11
Jay R. Galbraith
#8827
Overall Influence
1939 - 2014 (75 years)
Jay R. Galbraith was an American organizational theorist, consultant and professor at the International Institute for Management Development, known for his work on strategy and organization design. Biography Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Galbraith obtained his BSc in chemical engineering in 1962 at the University of Cincinnati, and at the Indiana University Bloomington his MBA in 1964, and his PhD in Business Administration with the thesis, entitled "Motivational Determinants of Job Performance: An Empirical Study."
Go to Profile#12
William Ouchi
#11568
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
William G. "Bill" Ouchi is an American professor and author in the field of business management. He is the Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizations, Sanford and Betty Sigoloff Chair in Corporate Renewal at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Go to Profile#13
Robert I. Sutton
#8856
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Robert I. Sutton is a professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Engineering and a researcher in the field of evidence-based management. He is a New York Times best-selling author.
Go to Profile#14
Dennis Meadows
#3471
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Dennis Lynn Meadows is an American scientist and Emeritus Professor of Systems Management, and former director of the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research at the University of New Hampshire. He is President of the Laboratory for Interactive Learning and widely known as a coauthor of The Limits to Growth.
Go to Profile#15
Kevin Lane Keller
#9735
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Kevin Lane Keller is the E. B. Osborn Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He is most notable for having authored Strategic Brand Management , a widely used text on brand management. The book is focused on the "how to" and "why" of brand management, this strategy guide provides specific tactical guidelines for planning, building, measuring, and managing brand equity. He has published his research in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research. In addition, Philip Kotler selected Keller to be his co-author on...
Go to Profile#16
Bernd Schmitt
#8252
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Bernd Herbert Schmitt is a professor of international business in the marketing department at Columbia Business School, Columbia University in New York. He is known for his research, books, speaking and consulting on customer experience, customer happiness, branding, innovation and for his work in Asia on Asian markets and consumers. He wrote several influential books in these areas like Experiential Marketing, Customer Experience Management, Big Think Strategy and Happy Customers Everywhere.
Go to Profile#17
J. Scott Armstrong
#18783
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
John Scott Armstrong was an author, forecasting and marketing expert, and an Emeritus Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Armstrong's research and writing in forecasting promote the ideas that in order to maximize accuracy, forecasting methods should rely on evidence-based methods.
Go to Profile#18
Chris Argyris
#47027
Overall Influence
1923 - 2013 (90 years)
Chris Argyris was an American business theorist and professor at Yale School of Management and Harvard Business School. Argyris, like Richard Beckhard, Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis, is known as a co-founder of organization development, and known for seminal work on learning organizations.
Go to Profile#19
Lester Thurow
#4716
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Lester Carl Thurow was an American political economist, former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of books on economic topics. Education Born in Livingston, Montana, Thurow received his B.A. in political economy from Williams College in 1960, where he was in Theta Delta Chi and Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, and a Tyng Scholar. After he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he went to Balliol College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating in 1962 with first class honors. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1964.
Go to Profile#20
Barry Nalebuff
#7210
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Barry J. Nalebuff is an American businessman, business theorist, and writer. He is a Milton Steinbach Professor of Management at Yale School of Management and author who specializes in business strategy and game theory. His published books include Thinking Strategically and The Art of Strategy. Nalebuff's class on negotiation has over 67,000 active learners through Coursera and has the second-highest net promoter score on the platform. He has a semi-regular column in Forbes with Ian Ayres called "Why Not?"
Go to Profile#21
Alice Eagly
#31325
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Alice H. Eagly is the James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences Emerita and emerita professor of psychology at Northwestern University. She is also a fellow at the Institute of Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her primary research focus is social psychology, as well as personality psychology and Industrial Organizational Psychology. She was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Go to Profile#22
Fred Luthans
#15747
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Fred Luthans is a management professor specializing in organizational behavior. He is the University and George Holmes Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Go to Profile#23
Richard L. Daft
#25379
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Richard L. Daft is an American organizational theorist and the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Professor of Management at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Biography Daft holds a B.S. from the University of Nebraska, an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#24
George S. Odiorne
#19868
Overall Influence
1920 - 1992 (72 years)
George Stanley Odiorne was an American academic and management theorist. He was one of the developers of the theory, Management by Objectives . Early life George S. Odiorne was born in 1920 in Merrimac, Massachusetts. He grew up in Lowell, and he had a brother and two sisters. During World War II, he served in the United States Army in the Pacific. He graduated from Rutgers University. He then earned a master's degree and a doctorate in business administration from New York University, where he was taught by Peter Drucker.
Go to Profile#25
David Cooperrider
#16275
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
David Cooperrider , is the Fairmount Minerals Chair and Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and Faculty Director at the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case.
Go to Profile#26
Robert R. Blake
#30711
Overall Influence
1918 - 2004 (86 years)
Robert Rogers Blake was an American management theoretician. He did pioneer work in the field of organizational dynamics. Together with Jane S. Mouton, he developed the Managerial Grid Model , which attempts to conceptualize management in terms of relations and leadership style.
Go to Profile#27
Arthur G. Bedeian
#24602
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Arthur G. Bedeian is an American business theorist and Emeritus Professor of Management at Louisiana State University, known from his book coauthored with Daniel A. Wren, titled "The evolution of management thought."
Go to Profile#28
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld
#16478
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is the Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management at Yale School of Management, and Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies. Sonnenfeld is best known as the founder and CEO of Chief Executive Leadership Institute , affiliated with Yale University.
Go to Profile#29
Stuart Madnick
#8149
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Stuart E. Madnick is an American computer scientist, and professor of information technology at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology school of engineering. He is the director of Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan , formerly called the MIT Interdisciplinary Consortium for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity .
Go to Profile#30
Harold Kerzner
#23180
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Harold Kerzner is an American engineer, management consultant, Emeritus Professor of Systems Management at Baldwin Wallace University, and Sr. Executive Director for Project Management at the International Institute for Learning, known for his work in the field of project management.
Go to Profile#31
Stephen R. Barley
#29991
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Stephen R. Barley is an American organizational theorist and Christian A. Felipe Professor of Technology Management at the College of Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara. Previously he was The Richard W. Weiland Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University and the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Barley's research focuses on the role of technology in organizational change and organizational/occupational culture.
Go to Profile#32
Andrew McAfee
#9405
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Andrew Paul McAfee is a principal research scientist at MIT and cofounder and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He studies how digital technologies are changing the world.
Go to Profile#33
Daniel A. Wren
#30094
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Daniel A. Wren is an American business theorist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Oklahoma, especially known for his 1972 book coauthored with Arthur G. Bedeian, entitled "The evolution of management thought."
Go to Profile#34
Modesto Maidique
#14030
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Modesto Alex "Mitch" Maidique was the fourth president of Florida International University , a public university in the United States, whose main campus is named after him. Appointed in 1986, Maidique was the longest-serving university president in Florida and the second longest-serving research university president in the United States . On November 14, 2008, Maidique presented his resignation to the FIU Board of trustees. On April 25, 2009, Mark B. Rosenberg was chosen to succeed Maidique and assumed office on August 3, 2009.
Go to Profile#35
Charles J. Hitch
#15690
Overall Influence
1910 - 1995 (85 years)
Charles J. Hitch was an American economist and Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1965. He later served as vice chancellor and president of the University of California and president of Resources for the Future .
Go to Profile#36
Kim S. Cameron
#11680
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Kim Sterling Cameron is the William Russell Kelly Professor of Management and Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He was formerly the dean of the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. He has also served as associate dean at both the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University and in the Ross School of Business.
Go to Profile#37
John Quelch
#10800
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
John Anthony Quelch CBE is a British-American academic and professor. He is the former dean of the University of Miami School of Business at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida from 2017 to 2022.
Go to Profile#38
David Maister
#18610
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
David H. Maister is a former Harvard Business School professor, American writer and expert on business management practices and the management of professional service firms. He is best known for writing Managing the Professional Service Firm and co-writing The Trusted Advisor with Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford. Born and raised in London, England, Maister became a citizen of the United States in 2006.
Go to Profile#39
Glen L. Urban
#18916
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Glen L. Urban has been a member of the MIT Sloan School of Management faculty since 1966 and dean at the school from 1993 to 1998. Urban is a leading educator, prize-winning researcher specializing in marketing and new product development, entrepreneur, and author. He is the Chairman of Sloan's MIT Center for Digital Business.
Go to Profile#40
Peter Pronovost
#15162
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Peter J. Pronovost is Chief Quality and Transformation Officer at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, the main affiliate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. At UH, Pronovost is responsible for improving value across the health system, helping people stay well, get well and manage their most acute medical conditions. He is the clinical lead for population health and the lead for high-reliability medicine, with direct responsibility for the UH employee accountable care organization. He is also responsible for telehealth and virtual health programs serving patie...
Go to Profile#41
Jeanne W. Ross
#24361
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Jeanne Wenzel Ross is an American organizational theorist and principal research scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Center for Information Systems Research , specializes in Enterprise Architecture, ICT and Management. She is known for her work on IT governance, and Enterprise architecture.
Go to Profile#42
Linda Smircich
#41916
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Linda Smircich is a Professor of Management in the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst where she teaches Organizational Alternative Paradigms. She is part of the critical management studies approach field and a critical researcher in organizational culture and gender.
Go to Profile#43
Michael A. Cusumano
#30538
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor and Deputy Dean at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Previously he held a joint appointment in the MIT School of Engineering, Division of Engineering Systems. Professor Cusumano specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in computer software as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. At MIT, he has recently taught Platform Strategy & Entrepreneurship as well as Strategy & the CEO. During 2016–17, he was on leave as Special Vice President and Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Initiat...
Go to Profile#44
Aria Finger
#20957
Overall Influence
Aria Finger is the Chief of Staff to Reid Hoffman. She also co-hosts, along with Hoffman, the podcast Possible. Background Finger attended Washington University in St. Louis where she graduated magna cum laude in economics and political science in 2005.
Go to Profile#45
Ram Mudambi
#27926
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Ram Mudambi is the Frank M. Speakman Professor of Strategy at the Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University. He has published over a hundred refereed journal articles and six books on the multinational strategies of entrepreneurial firms; the location and research and development strategies of multinational firmss, and the politics of international business. Mudambi serves as a co-editor of the Global Strategy Journal published by the Strategic Management Society . He also serves as a department editor at the Journal of International Business Policy published by the Academy of International Business .
Go to Profile#46
William H. Starbuck
#20976
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
William Haynes Starbuck graduated from Harvard University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology . He is an organizational scientist who has held professorships in social relations , sociology , business administration , and management .
Go to Profile#47
Jay Nunamaker
#32631
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Jay F. Nunamaker Jr. is Regents Professor and Soldwedel Professor at the University of Arizona. Regents Professor is the highest faculty rank bestowed at the university, an honor reserved for the top 3% of scholars.
Go to Profile#48
Derek Bok
#2338
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Derek Curtis Bok is an American lawyer and educator, and the former president of Harvard University. Life and career Bok was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Following his parents' divorce, he, his mother, brother and sister moved several times, ultimately to Los Angeles, where he spent much of his childhood. He graduated from Stanford University , Harvard Law School , attended Sciences Po, and George Washington University .
Go to Profile#49
Frank T. Rothaermel
#25046
Overall Influence
Frank T. Rothaermel is a professor in the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology and an Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellow. He holds the Russell and Nancy McDonough Chair of Business.
Go to Profile#50
James Duderstadt
#23619
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
James Johnson Duderstadt was the President of the University of Michigan from 1988 to 1996. Duderstadt was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1987 for significant contributions to nuclear science and engineering relating to fission and fusion energy systems and reactor theory and design.
Go to Profile