Clayton Christensen

Christensen had leukemia and died on January 23, 2020, aged 67, due to complications from his cancer.

In February 2010, Christensen announced that he had been diagnosed with follicular lymphoma. In July 2010, he had an ischemic stroke. In 2011, Christensen published two books: The Innovative University and The Innovator’s DNA (Harvard Business Press). More recently Christensen has focused on applying his ideas to social innovations including healthcare and development in Africa.

In 2000, he founded Innosight LLC, a consulting and training firm. In 2005, together with his colleagues at Innosight, he launched Innosight Ventures, a venture firm focused on investing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. In 2007, he co-founded Rose Park Advisors LLC (named after the neighborhood in Salt Lake City where he was raised), an investment company which applies his research as an investment strategy.

At HBS, he taught an elective course he designed called "Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise", which teaches how to build and manage an enduring, successful company or transform an existing organization, and also in many of the school's executive education programs. Christensen was awarded a full professorship with tenure in 1998, and held eight honorary doctorates and an honorary chaired professorship at the National Tsinghua University in Taiwan.

Christensen was the best-selling author of ten books, including his seminal work The Innovator's Dilemma (1997), which received the Global Business Book Award for the best business book of the year. One of the main concepts depicted in this book is also his most disseminated and famous one: disruptive innovation. The concept has been growing in interest over time since 2004, according to Google Trends' data. However, due to constant misinterpretation, Christensen often wrote articles trying to explain the concept even further. Some of his other books are focused on specific industries and discuss social issues such as education and health care. Disrupting Class (2008) looks at the root causes of why schools struggle and offers solutions, while The Innovator's Prescription (2009) examines how to fix the American healthcare system. The latter two books have received numerous awards as the best books on education and health care in their respective years of publication. The Innovator's Prescription was also awarded the 2010 James A. Hamilton Award, by the College of Healthcare Executives.

After receiving his MBA in 1979, Christensen began working for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as a consultant and project manager. In 1982, he was named a White House Fellow and took a one-year leave of absence from BCG to work in Washington, D.C. as an assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, serving under both Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole. In 1984, he and several professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded an advanced ceramics company called Ceramics Process Systems Corporation (now known as CPS Technologies). Christensen served as its president and CEO through the late 1980s, then decided to leave the company and become a university professor. He returned to Harvard for doctoral study in business, receiving a Doctor of Business Administration degree in 1992. After completing his doctorate, Christensen joined the HBS faculty and set a record by achieving the rank of "full" professor in only six years.

Christensen lived in Belmont, Massachusetts, with his wife, Christine, whom he married in 1976. They had three sons, Matthew, Michael, and Spencer, and two daughters, Ann and Catherine. Their eldest son, Matthew Christensen (b. 1977), was a 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) forward on Duke University's 2001 National Championship team.

As a member of the LDS Church, Christensen served from 1971 to 1973 as a missionary in Korea and spoke fluent Korean. He served in several leadership positions in the church, including as an area seventy from 2002 to 2009, a counselor in the presidency of the Massachusetts Boston Mission, and as a bishop. His book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries, was a leading work in the LDS Church on how all people could be involved in sharing the gospel no matter their position in the church. He was also a moving force behind the creation of For All The Saints, a book by Kristen Smith Dayley on the history of the LDS Church in New England, published in 2012 to which Christensen wrote the foreword.

After graduating from high school in 1970, Christensen matriculated at Brigham Young University (BYU). While at BYU, he took a two-year leave of absence from 1971 to 1973 to serve as a volunteer full-time missionary for the LDS Church. He was assigned to serve in South Korea and became a fluent speaker of Korean. Christensen returned to BYU after completing his missionary service, and in 1975 graduated with an Honors B.A. summa cum laude in economics. Upon graduating, he won a Rhodes Scholarship and spent two years studying applied econometrics at Oxford, receiving an M.Phil. in 1977. Christensen then returned to the United States studied for an MBA at Harvard University's Harvard Business School, which he earned with high distinction in 1979.

Clayton Magleby Christensen (April 6, 1952 – January 23, 2020) was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of "disruptive innovation", first introduced in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma, which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century, and which led The Economist to term him "the most influential management thinker of his time." He served as the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School (HBS), and was also a leader and writer in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Clayton Christensen was born on April 6, 1952, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the second of eight children born to Robert M. Christensen (1926–1976) and his wife, Verda Mae Christensen (née Fuller; 1922–2004). He grew up in the Rose Park neighborhood of Salt Lake City and attended West High School, where he was student body president. Christensen and his siblings were raised as members of the LDS Church. Christensen was an avid basketball player who stood 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) tall, and later became the starting center on the men's basketball team during his time at the University of Oxford.