Costas Markides

Costas Markides is one of the top keynote business and strategy speakers in the world today. He is a professor of Strategic and International Management and holds the Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership at the London Business School.

A native of Cyprus, Costas received his BA (Distinction) and MA in Economics from Boston University, and his MBA and DBA from the Harvard Business School.

He has done research and published on many topics including; strategic innovation, corporate restructuring, international acquisitions, and the use of innovation and creativity to achieve strategic breakthroughs.

Costas's book Diversification, Refocusing and Economic Performance was published by MIT Press in December 1995 and his book All the Right Moves: A Guide to Crafting Breakthrough Strategy was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2000 and was short-listed for the Igor Ansoff Strategic Management Award 2000. A third book, (co-edited with Michael Cusumano) entitled Strategic Thinking for the Next Economy was published by Jossey-Bass in May 2001. His latest book (with Paul Geroski), entitled Fast Second: How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets was published in 2005 and was shortlisted for the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the year Award 2005.

His publications have also appeared in journals such as the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Directors & Boards, Leader to Leader, Long Range Planning, Business Strategy Review, British Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal and the Academy of Management Journal.

Professor Markides has increasingly turned his attention to social issues and studies how management ideas can be used to address social problems  such as drug-related crime, poverty and malnutrition.

He has taught on many in-house programmes (for companies such as Unilever, Boeing, Pirelli, Honeywell, Nestle, and Sara Lee) and is on the Academic Board of the Cyprus International Institute of Management. He is the Associate Editor of the European Management Journal and is on the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal and the Sloan Management Review. He is also a member of the Academy of Management and the Strategic Management Society. His current research interests include the management of diversified firms and the use of innovation and creativity to achieve strategic breakthroughs.