Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on General Management, Top Management Teams, Corporate Crises and Mistakes, and Managing Mergers and Acquisitions. He joined the Tuck School in January 1994, after having been on the faculty at the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. He has taught executive education at the Tuck School (where he serves as the Faculty Director of the flagship Tuck Executive Program), Northwestern, Duke, Bocconi, London Business School, Australian Graduate School of Management, and the Helsinki School of Economics. He holds a Masters degree in economics and industrial relations from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in strategic management.

Professor Finkelstein is the author of Why Smart Executives Fail (New York: Portfolio, 2003), which brings together the major findings from a six-year study of corporate failures and corporate mistakes. Based on a study of 51 companies and 197 interviews of business leaders, the book focuses on understanding the fundamental reasons why major mistakes happen, identifies the early warning signals that are critical for investors and managers alike, and offers ideas on how organizations can develop a capability of learning from corporate mistakes. The book, which hit Amazon’s best seller list in Business and Investing and Fortune magazine’s list of Best Business Books for Summer 2003, has been called “a landmark, certain to become a classic for illuminating the darkness about leadership failures.” It has been featured in such media as the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the London Times, the Toronto Globe and Mail, Fast Company, Across the Board, and Fortune.

Professor Finkelstein has conducted extensive research on strategic leadership, and published numerous articles in the major journals in his field. He is an expert on mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, and corporate governance, and is an experienced executive coach. His book, Strategic Leadership: Top Executives and Their Effects on Organizations, was a finalist for the Academy of Management’s Terry Book Award in 1998. His article on power dynamics within top management teams was ranked as the number one publication by academicians in strategic leadership in the first half of the 1990s.

Professor Finkelstein’s awards include the McKinsey & Company Strategic Management Society Best Conference Paper Prize Honorable Mention (2002), the Best Paper Award from the Academy of Management Executive for his article “Leveraging Intellect” (1997), two Citations of Excellence from ANBAR, the world’s leading guide to management journal literature (1997 & 1998), the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management (1993), the Cenafoni Prize for research in Entrepreneurial Strategy (1991), and finalist for the A.T. Kearney award for the best research in strategic management (1988). He currently serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Strategic Organization. He has participated on numerous CEO forums, been interviewed or had his work appear in numerous leading media outlets, served as a consultant and speaker for major companies in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Mexico, including Aetna, American Express, BASF, Boeing, Deloitte & Touche, Deutsche Bank, Enhance Financial Services, Entergy, Flemings, GE, Glaxo, McKinsey, Monsanto, NACM, Omax de Mexico, Onninen Oy, Raytheon, Roche, Tasman Pulp & Paper, PwC, and UPM-Kymmene, and taught in executive development programs in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Air Force and Wells Fargo.

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