Rita McGrath

Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after advisor and speaker, and a longtime faculty member at Columbia Business School. Rita is one of the world’s top experts on strategy and innovation and is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world, including the #1 award for strategy by Thinkers50.  McGrath’s acclaimed book on strategic inflection points is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Rita is the author of four other books, including the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).  She is working on her sixth book which is slated to be published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2028.  

At Columbia, Rita directs the popular Executive Education course Leading Strategic Growth and Change.  She also guest-lectures in a number of other courses and acts as the faculty director for some of Columbia’s prestigious custom programs offerings. 

Rita is one of the most frequent contributors to the Harvard Business Review.  Her most recent article is “The Power of Strategic Centering” (July-August, 2026).  Her work on discovery-driven growth was praised by the late legendary management thinker Clayton Christensen as offering “some of the most important tools of management and strategy that have ever been developed.”  She is a regular contributor to Fast Company magazine, hosts a weekly podcast called “Thought Sparks” and is frequently cited in the press.  

Rita was awarded the prestigious C. K. Prahalad award from the Strategic Management Society, an award for scholarly impact on practice.  She has won many other awards for her work and impact, including the “Theory to Practice” award from the Vienna Strategy Forum, the “best paper” award from the Academy of Management Review and multiple “best book” awards for her work.  She has been elected to the Business Excellence Hall of Fame for her contributions.  

McGrath received her Ph.D. from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and has degrees with honors from Barnard College and the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. She is active on all the main social media platforms.  For more information, visit RitaMcGrath.com.