Stephen P. Kaufman (born 1941) has been a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School since 2001. He teaches in both the MBA program and various Executive Education programs. His MBA courses include the first year required course in Technology and Operations Management and the second year elective Building and Sustaining the Successful Enterprise, which was developed by Clay Christensen and focuses on strategy and general management. This has become the most popular elective course in the MBA curriculum with well over half the 2nd year student body enrolling. The Class of 2008 recognized Kaufman with its Faculty Award in Teaching and the administration named him an inaugural recipient of the school’s recently established Charles M. Williams Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Kaufman writes, lectures, and consults about board and corporate governance, operations and supply chain management, acquisition strategy and integration, and creating disruptive growth through innovative business models and technologies.
He is the retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE), which he joined in 1982. He was appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of the corporation in 1985, added the Chairman’s title in 1994, and retired in 2002. Under his leadership Arrow grew from a $500 million USA centric corporation to a $12 billion global enterprise ranking within the top 200 companies on the Fortune 500 list. In 2005 Electronics Business magazine named Kaufman one of the ten most influential executives in the electronics industry over the past 25 years.
Prior to joining Arrow, he served in executive capacities with Midland-Ross Corporation and for ten years was with the international management consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, where he was a partner in their Cleveland office focusing on strategy and operations issues for industrial clients.
He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Harris Corporation (NYSE) where he chairs the Management Development and Compensation Committee, KLA-Tencor (NASDQ), and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE) where he chairs the Compensation Committee. In addition, he is on the Board of Directors of Kiva Systems and Transtar, Inc., both privately held companies He also serves on the Boards of several philanthropic and arts organizations in Boston.
He earned his B.S. degree in economics and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963 and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1965. He received an honorary Doctorate Degree from Dowling College in 1995 and was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the Harvard Business School in 1997.
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