Michael Porter

Management theorist, born in Ann Arbor, Michigan , USA. Trained as an economist at Princeton and Harvard Business School, he became a lecturer at Harvard (1973) and subsequently professor (1982). In 1983 he founded Monitor Co Inc, a strategic consulting organization. He was in great demand throughout the 1980s as a lecturer and consultant to many leading US and UK organizations. His book Competitive Analysis (1980) has been translated into 13 languages, and has had over 30 printings.

Michael Everett Porter (born 1947) is an American academic focused on management and economics. He is currently the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor based at Harvard Business School where he leads the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness.

A leading contributor to strategic management theory, Porter's main academic objectives focus on how a firm or a region can build a competitive advantage and develop competitive strategy. Porter's strategic system consists primarily of:

5 forces analysis strategic groups (also called strategic sets) the value chain the generic strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus the market positioning strategies of variety based, needs based, and access based market positions. Porter's clusters of competence for regional economic development

In 1984, he was one of the co-founders of Monitor Group, a leading global strategy and management consulting firm with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1994, he founded the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a non-profit organization with a mission of fostering economic development in the impoverished inner city.

He has been rated among the Thinkers 50, the most influential living management thinkers. Published Competitive Strategy, which set him at leading edge of strategic thinking.