Faculty and Research

Bhaskar Chakravorti joined the HBS faculty in July 2008 and is a faculty associate with the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE).  He is also a Partner of McKinsey & Company, an international management consulting firm, where he is a leader of the Firm's Innovation practice and has served on its Knowledge Services Committee, which oversees McKinsey's 1,200 person global research system.  At HBS, he teaches and writes on entrepreneurship management, new venture formation and innovation; specifically, in the MBA program he teaches: "Entrepreneurship and Innovation Shaped by Crises" and "Building Business in the Conext of Life".  Bhaskar has advised CEOs, Boards and senior management of the global leaders in multiple industries (technology, health and consumer care and renewable energy) on innovation, growth and new business-building.  In 15 years of consulting he has advised over 30 companies in the Fortune 500.  He has helped start new businesses that have scaled up in established companies, re-positioned private equity portfolio companies for growth and has been involved in the public policy arena with regulators and on Capitol Hill.  His clients and scope of work cover many geographies in addition to the U.S. and the EU: e.g., Brazil, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Philippines, Canada, multiple African countries.  Bhaskar's book, The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World, Harvard Business School Press; 2003, and over 35 articles are on the topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, decision-making and mechanism/organization design through applications of game theory. 

 

Bhaskar's book—selected as one of the Best Business Books of the year by multiple publications and an Amazon.com best-seller on Innovation —has been influential in many client and policy recommendations.  Bhaskar's articles appear in top-tier peer-reviewed academic journals (e.g., Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Mathematical Economics, International Journal of Game Theory, Games & Economic Behavior, International Economic Review, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Journal of Public Economics, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, among several others), multiple books, and widely-read publications, e.g., Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal Europe, Financial Times, Economic Times and two websites he has authored. 

 

His ideas and interviews have been featured in multiple media, e.g., BusinessWeek, The Economist, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Fast Company, Economic Times, CBS MarketWatch, Investors Business Daily, NECN-TV etc. as well as a documentary film on the open source movement.  He has been invited to present, as a keynote speaker and as a panelist, to audiences in business, academia, an advisory committee to the U.S. president, public policy-making bodies (e.g., FCC, Capitol Hill), multi-lateral entities (e.g., World Bank, ITU), futurist think-tanks (e.g., Aspen Institute, GBN), research, and the VC and investor community.  He was named among the top "new age gurus" by India's largest business newspaper, Economic Times, and has won awards for both scholarship and consulting.

 

Examples of Bhaskar's client advisory work include:

• Building innovative new businesses: helping with founding of first successful software venture in global hardware leader; helping organize a financial services venture within global high-tech player that has scaled-up to be one of the world's largest; developing new venture portfolios for leading telecom and high tech companies; developing a portfolio of adjacencies for a renowned consumer brand; helping with blockbuster product/franchise launches for major pharma and major medical devices companies; creating first-for-the-industry business for a leading bio-pharma player; developing a life sciences platform for a high tech player, solar energy portfolio for a tech and chemicals company

• Developing businesses from mega-trends: Assessing emerging markets potential and entry strategy for major biotech; helping modernize telecommunications in Africa; working with all major wireline and wireless telcos, public safety agencies, regulators and legislators to resolve critical gaps in the public safety and Homeland security communications; evaluating the future of network and quantum computing; exploring business-building potential in renewable (bio-fuels, solar) energies, healthcare and services for aging populations, portable power technologies; assessing the role of incentives in fostering innovation

• Organizing innovative business models and partnerships: Formulating partnership strategy for a high tech player and a media company; supporting strategic negotiations between high tech players; organizing innovative consortium of multiple media companies; designing and bidding in industry-shaping auctions.

 

Bhaskar has been involved in key knowledge initiatives at McKinsey, e.g., the Firm's first Knowledge Services Committee, the McKinsey Technology Initiative/Oxford Internet Institute collaboration on distributed problem-solving, as Strategy Dean for the Firm's EM College at Cambridge University, the Management Lab.  His other activities include: organizing academic and management conferences, senior advisor on telecom investing to private equity, membership of several key healthcare related initiatives, e.g., Mass Insight Life Sciences Working Group, Gene Partnership Project, Children's Hospital, Boston.

Bhaskar's prior appointments include: Partner and Thought Leader at the global strategy and merchant banking firm, Monitor Group; game theorist and member of the technical staff at Bellcore, the R&D labs for the Bell telephone companies; assistant professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; officer of TAS, the executive cadre for the Tata Group, India's pre-eminent conglomerate.

Bhaskar has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester, where he was a University Fellow, M.A. in economics from the University of Rochester and the Delhi School of Economics and a B.A. with Honors in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University.  He lives in Brookline, Mass. with his wife, two children and two cats.