I am eager to call to your attention what has been, until recently, one of the best-kept secrets in knowledge leadership: Thinkers50.

Des Dearlove is co-founder of the Thinkers50. He is an adjunct professor at IE Business School, an associate fellow of Said Business School at Oxford University and the author of a bestselling study of the leadership style of Richard Branson. He is a former columnist to The (London) Times, contributing editor to the American magazine Strategy+Business, and co-editor of the bestselling Financial Times Handbook of Management. His books available in more than 20 languages include Gravy Training and Generation Entrepreneur (co-authored with Stuart Crainer).

 

Stuart Crainer is editor of the award-winning magazine Business Strategy Review and co-founder of the Thinkers50. According to Personnel Today he is one of the most influential people in British people management. His book credits include The Management Century: One Hundred Years of Thinking and Practice and a biography of the management guru Tom Peters. His work with Des Dearlove in business thought leadership led Management Today to describe them as “market makers par excellence.” Stuart is an adjunct professor at IE Business School.

I highly recommend all of their collaborations as well as Drealove’s Big Shots, Business the Richard Branson Way: 10 Secrets of the World’s Greatest Brand Builder and Crainer’s aforementioned The Management Century.

As they explain:

When it was launched in 2001, the Thinkers50 was the first-ever global ranking of management thinkers. It has been published every two years since.

In the intervening decade, the scope of the Thinkers50 has broadened to include a range of activities that support its mission of identifying and sharing the best management thinking in the world.

That mission is based on three core beliefs:

o Ideas have the power to change the world
o Management is essential to human affairs
o New thinking can create a better future.

The Thinkers50 Ranking remains the premier ranking of its kind, and the Thinkers50 Awards (introduced in 2011) are widely regarded as the “Oscars of management thinking”.

Today, the Thinkers50 brand is admired globally for its objectivity and market intelligence, confirming its position as the leading independent authority in management ideas.

Our core values are:

o Independence
o Integrity
o Accessibility

The Thinkers50 also has a growing reputation for innovation in the thought-leadership world. Developing new ways to share the best thinking is at the heart of what we do. Our new Thinkers50 iPad Apps are a great example of that, and we will continue to introduce new idea-sharing technologies.

Here is a direct link to the Thinkers50 website.

Here is a direct link to what Thinkers50 has published…thus far.

Those in the UK may prefer this link.