Michael A. Cusumano is the SMR Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and currently the faculty director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and the CoDirector of the MIT System Design and Management (SDM) Program. During 2020-2024, he was Deputy Dean for Faculty and Research.  He has also held a joint appointment as Professor of Engineering Systems in the MIT School of Engineering.

Cusumano specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in computer software as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. At MIT, he teaches “Strategy in the Age of Digital Platforms.” During 2016-17, he was on leave as Special Vice President and Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Tokyo University of Science, where he founded an entrepreneurship center, redesigned the mid-career Management of Technology curriculum, and oversaw the merger between the Graduate School of Innovation and a relaunched School of Management.

Cusumano received a BA degree from Princeton and a PhD from Harvard, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Production and Operations Management at the Harvard Business School prior to joining MIT. He is fluent in Japanese and has lived and worked in Japan for approximately 10 years, with two Fulbright Fellowships and a Japan Foundation Fellowship for studying at Tokyo University. He has been a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, Tokyo University, Hitotsubashi University, the University of St. Gallen, the University of Maryland, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He has consulted and lectured for approximately 100 companies and organizations, including NASA, the World Bank, and the Bank of England. He has been an outside director for 13 public and private companies, most recently Orix Corporation and Fixstars in Japan, and Multitude/Ferratum in Europe.   He has served as editor-in-chief and chairman of the MIT Sloan Management Review and writes regularly on Technology Strategy and Management for Communications of the ACM. In 2009, he was named one of the most influential people in technology and IT by Silicon.com.

Cusumano has published 14 books and more than 120 articles. His latest book is The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power (2019, with Annabelle Gawer and David Yoffie). His prior book with David Yoffie, Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs (2015), has been translated into 18 languages and received wide media coverage from CNBC, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, The Economist, The Financial Times, Fast Company, and other media outlets. Other books include Staying Power (2010), based on the 2009 Oxford Clarendon Lectures and named one of the top books of 2011 by Strategy + Business Magazine; and The Business of Software (2004), also named one of the best books of the year in Strategy + Business Magazine.  His book Microsoft Secrets (1995, with Richard Selby) has sold approximately 150,000 copies in 14 languages. Platform Leadership (2002, with Annabelle Gawer) is often considered the first management book to examine industry-wide platforms and ecosystem-based competition. Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and its Battle with Microsoft (1998, with David Yoffie), was named one of the top 10 business books of 1998 by Business Week and played a central role in the Microsoft anti-trust trial.

Contact Information:

Michael A. Cusumano  

MIT Sloan School of Management

100 Main Street, E62-440, Cambridge, MA  02142

p: +1-617-253-2574  |  e: cusumano@mit.edu

w: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/michael-a-cusumano

For calendar inquiries, please contact Sumaiya Rahman Haddad, sumaiyar@mit.edu