LONDON –Thinkers50, the premier ranking of global business thinkers, today announced the shortlisted nominees for this year’s prestigious Distinguished AchievementAwards, which have been described as the “Oscars of management thinking.”
Awards will be made in ten categories: Innovation;Digital Thinking;Strategy;Ideas into Practice;Leadership;Talent;Social Enterprise; the CK Prahalad Breakthrough Idea Award (named after the innovative business thinker who twice topped the Thinkers50 ranking); the Radar Award for the thinker most likely to shape the future; and the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Thinkers50 is a celebration of the very best new management thinking as well as those ideas which stand the test of time,” says Des Dearlove, who created Thinkers50 with Stuart Crainer in 2001. “We are looking for ideas with a potential impact that extends beyond the business world to address issues ranging from reducing poverty to building a sustainable model of capitalism.”
This year’s awards highlight thinkers whose ideas have the potential to change the world. The shortlist for the Breakthrough Idea Award, for example, includes Robin Chase, theco-founder of Zipcar, for her incorporation of the peer-to-peer economy into the business world. Also nominated for the Breakthrough Idea Award are Rachel Botsman for the concept of ‘collaborative consumption’; Dave Ulrich for his Leadership Capital Index; as well as Brain Robertson for ‘holacracy’, the antidote to hierarchy.
On November 9th 2015, thinkers from around the world will convene in London for what has been described as the Oscars of management thinking to discover who has won the prestigious awards. The shortlists include business experts from more than 12 nationalities, including India, Korea,Cuba, Austria, France, India, Italy,Canada, the UK and the US. The shortlists also include more women than ever before. (The full shortlists are below.)
“It is great to see such diversity on the shortlists,” says Stuart Crainer, who co-created the Thinkers50 with Dearlove. “For too long business thinking could be characterized as male, pale and stale. That’s no longer the case. As management becomes more global, too, and people move around the world it is increasingly difficult to pinpoint exactly which country a thinker comes from. The theme of Thinkers50 2015 is our own global footprint and the increasingly global nature of management ideas.”
Thinkers50 2015 sponsors includeFujitsu, Speakers Associates, the European Centre for Strategic Innovation, and Talent Quarterly. Thinkers50 affiliates now cover the world and include: the Nordic Business Forum;Future Ideas (Netherlands);The Growth Faculty (Australia);India’s Institute for Competitiveness; and MCT (Turkey).
About Thinkers50
Thinkers50 scans, ranks and shares the very best in management ideas. Its definitive global ranking of management thinkers is published every two years. The 2013 winner was Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School. Previous winners includeCK Prahalad (2009 and 2007);Michael Porter (2005) and Peter Drucker (2001 and 2003).
For Thinkers50 2015, more than 20,000 people suggested their favored thinkers at the Thinkers50 website and 1,200 nominated thinkers for the awards.
Thinkers50 2015 advisers,drawn from America, Asia, and Europe, includeMohi Ahmed, Fujitsu; AlperUtku, European Leadership University; Mark Allin, CEO of John Wiley & Sons; AmitKapoor, Institute for Competitiveness, India; DeepaPrahalad, author, business strategist and consultant; CosimoTurroturro of Speakers Associates; Danny Stern of Stern Associates and Adi Ignatius of the Harvard Business Review.
About Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove
Des Dearlove& Stuart Crainer are the founders and directors of Thinkers50. They are the authors of more than 15 books available in 20 languages. Former columnists to The (London) Times, they are editors of The Financial Times Handbook of Management. They advise thinkers and organizations worldwide.
IDEAS INTO PRACTICE
There is nothing so practical as a great idea. At Thinkers50 we value new thinking that makes a valuable contribution in the real world. Equally, we admire organizations that are open to new ideas no matter what their source. The T50 Ideas into Practice Award celebrates an organization putting new ideas to work.
This is a new award.
2015 Shortlist:
Haier & Zhang Ruimin
Relentless change, teamworking, destruction of middle management layers, combined with long-term dynamic leadership.
Red Hat & Jim Whitehurst
The open source movement applied to management of a modern corporation. Ideas captured in Whitehurst’s book The Open Organization (HBR, 2015).
Singularity University & Peter Diamandis, Ray Kurzweil& Robert Richards
Think tank meets educational institution and more. Silicon Valley-based benefit corporation seeking to change the shape of education.
Zipcar& Robin Chase
The incorporation of the peer-to-peer economy into the business world made real by Chase, co-founder of Zipcar.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
The T50 Lifetime Achievement Award acknowledges an exceptional individual whose work has made an important contribution to global thought leadership over an extended period. This person has brought insights that challenge the way we think about management. Their work must be global, original and embraced by practitioners.
Previous winners: IkujiroNonaka and Charles Handy.
The 2015 recipient will be announced on October 1.
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