Tom Davenport - About Me

about me
professional experience | education | honors/awards | public and university service | other professional activities

I hold the President's Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College where I teach MBAs and executives about decision-making and analytics.

I'm also a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics.

My most recent book, Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results is now available.

Here's a list of all my published books.

In 2003 I was named one of the Top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting magazine. In 2007 and 2008 I was named one of the 100 most influential people in the IT industry by Ziff-Davis magazines.

I'm available for speaking engagements and consulting.

I directed research centers at Ernst & Young, McKinsey & Company, CSC Index, and Accenture.

I've written, co-authored or edited thirteen books, including the first books on analytivcal competition, business process reengineering, knowledge management, and the business use of enterprise systems.

I've also written hundreds of articles and columns for such publications as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Financial Times, Information Week, CIO and many others.

Professional Experience

1999 - present
Babson College (Wellesley, MA)
President’s Distinguished Professor of Management and Information Technology

2000
Amos Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH)
Visiting Professor

1998 - 2003
Andersen Consulting Institute for Strategic Change (Cambridge, MA)
Partner and Director

1998 - 2000
Boston University School of Management (Boston, MA)
Professor, Management Information Systems Department

1994 - 1998
The University of Texas (Austin, TX)
Professor, Management Science and Information Systems, and Director, Information Management Program, College and Graduate School of Business. Co-Director, Center for Customer Insights. Curtis Mathes Fellowship.

1990 - 1994
Ernst and Young (Boston, MA)
Partner and Director of Research, Center for Business Innovation.

1992 - 1994
Boston University (Boston, MA)
Adjunct Professor, Management Information Systems Department, Graduate School of Management.

1989 - 1990
McKinsey and Company (New York, NY)
Director of IT Research and consultant.

1988 - 1989
Harvard Business School (Boston, MA)
Senior Research Associate.

1983 - 1988
CSC Index (Cambridge, MA)
Principal and Director of Research.

1981 - 1983
Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
Lecturer, Department of Sociology

1980 -1981
University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
Assistant Professor, Social Sciences Department. Senior Study Director, National Opinion Research Center.

Education

1982 Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
Business Program for Ph.D.'s.

1980 Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
Ph.D. in Sociology

1979 Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
M.A. in Sociology

1976 Trinity University (San Antonio, TX)
B.A. in Sociology, Magna Cum Laude.

Honors and Awards

1976 Phi Beta Kappa, Blue Key, Trinity University.

1976 Graduate Fellowship, National Science Foundation.

1980 Post-Doctoral Fellowship, National Institute of Mental Health.

1990 Richard Beckhard Award (with James Short) for best article on organizational change, Sloan Management Review.

1992 Virtuous Pagans, my Ph.D. dissertation, selected as one of “Outstanding Harvard Dissertations” and published by Garland Publishing.

1993 Process Innovation voted one of 10 best business books of 1993, Library Journal.

1993 Winner of Ernst & Young’s first “Value Creation Award” for work on reengineering.

1993 Commencement address, Boston University M.S. in Management Information Systems

1994 Judge, CIO 100 (best 100 firms in IT management)

1995 Judge, Arthur D. Little Process Management Award.

1995 Invited to give “State of the Art” video presentation for Australian Association for Computing Machinery

1996 Board of Judges, McKinsey Prize (best article), Harvard Business Review.

2000 Named one of 10 “Masters of the New Economy” by CIO magazine.

2001 Named one of 25 “E-Business Gurus” by Darwin magazine.

2001 Attention Economy named one of 30 best business books of the year.

2001 Invited to attend Fortune Magazine’s “Brainstorm 2001: The Smartest People We Know” conference in Aspen

Public and University Service

• Between 1990 and 1998, presentations or pro bono consulting to the Texas Department of Insurance, Austin Special Libraries Association, IC2 Institute, MIT Enterprise Forum, Greenville, S.C. Children’s Hospital, Urban Land Institute, Internal Revenue Service, Educational Testing Service, General Accounting Office, Internal Revenue Service, Austin City Manager’s Office, UT Chicago and Oklahoma City Business School Alumni Clubs, Austin Reengineering Special Interest Group, Harvard Business School Austin Alumni Club, Business School Dean’s Associates, Graduate Consulting Club, IBM Latin America, EDS, Amoco, Compaq, Deloitte and Touche, Federal Express, Insource Management Group, VTEL Corporation, Trilogy Development Corp., Sheshunoff Management Services, Ernst & Young, Intel, Hewlett Packard, HEB, Frito-Lay, Convex, and J.C. Penney.

• Advisor to Vice-President Gore’s “National Performance Review.”

• Executive Council on Information Management, US General Accounting Office

Other Professional Activities

• Board of Directors, Inference Corporation, Novato, CA., 1996-1998

• Board of Directors, American Productivity and Quality Center.

• Editor at Large, Knowledge Inc., a newsletter on knowledge management.

• Board of Advisors, Concours Group, Inc.

• Board of Advisors, Journee Software, Inc.

• Board of Advisors, Ventix, Inc.

• Member, SAP Innovation Council, 2000-present

• Trustee, Marketing Science Institute

• Board of Sponsors, MIT Center for Information Systems Research