Richard Rumelt's teaching, research, and consulting focus on competitive strategy and the nature of competitive advantage.
He is the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy — The Difference and Why It Matters, as well as a co-author of Fundamental Issues in Strategy — A Research Agenda and the author of Strategy, Structure, and Economic Performance.
In addition to his academic work, he has been a consultant to numerous firms, non-profit organizations, the Department of Defense, and several governments.
Richard earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. During 1963-65 he worked as a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories. He later studied decision sciences and corporate strategy at the Harvard Business School, receiving his doctorate in 1972.
Between 1972 and 1976 he was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School, with two of those years spent on assignment to found the Harvard-sponsored Iran Center for Management Studies (ICMS).
In 1976 he joined the UCLA faculty. During 1992-96 he was on long-term leave from UCLA, serving on the faculty at INSEAD, France. At INSEAD, he headed the Corporate Renewal Initiative, a research/intervention center devoted to the study and practice of corporate transformation.
Richard was a founding member of the Strategic Management Society and served as its president in 1995-98.
Richard is an avid skier and mountain climber and his second home in Santa Fe New Mexico gives him access to wonderful unspoiled country. He is married to Kate who was once a strategy professor but is today a prize-winning fabric artist specializing in three-dimensional geometric forms.
The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters