Richard Tedlow

Richard Tedlow
Name	Richard Tedlow
Occupation	Historian, Professor, Author
Employer	Harvard Business School
Alma mater	University of Michigan, Harvard University
Notable works	The Watson Dynasty; Giants of Enterprise; Andy Grove; Denial; The Emergence of the American Business Corporation

Richard Tedlow is an American business historian, educator, and consultant known for his work on corporate strategy, management biographies, and the history of American enterprise. He is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of several biographies and studies of firms and executives. His scholarship connects archival research with practical insights for executives, board members, and policymakers.

Early life and education

Born and raised in the United States, Tedlow completed undergraduate and graduate studies that prepared him for a career in business history and management education. He earned degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard University, where he studied alongside scholars from institutions such as Stanford University, Columbia University, Yale University, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his formative years he engaged with archives and collections related to companies like General Electric, IBM, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Standard Oil while interacting with scholars connected to the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Schlesinger Library.

Academic and professional career

Tedlow joined the faculty of Harvard Business School, where he has taught courses on marketing history, corporate strategy, and leadership alongside colleagues from schools such as Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, Wharton School, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School. He has held visiting appointments and lectured at institutions including London Business School, INSEAD, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Northwestern University, and Duke University Fuqua School of Business. His academic network includes collaboration with researchers affiliated with the Brookings Institution, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Tedlow has served on editorial boards and advisory panels for periodicals and institutions such as Harvard Business Review, Business History Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Economist. He has also participated in events at venues like the World Economic Forum, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Brooklyn Historical Society, and the New-York Historical Society.

Research and publications

Tedlow's publications examine firms, leaders, and market evolution. His book "Giants of Enterprise" profiles executives and firms comparable to studies of J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell. His biography of Andy Grove situates the Intel story within contexts including Moore's Law, Semiconductor Industry Association, Fairchild Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, and Advanced Micro Devices. In "Denial," Tedlow analyzes corporate crises with case studies drawn from companies like Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Toyota Motor Corporation, and BP.

Tedlow's historical work traces the emergence of modern corporations, connecting to scholarship on Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, Joseph Schumpeter, Alfred Chandler Jr., Peter Drucker, and Michael Porter. He engages primary sources from corporate archives such as Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Apple Inc., Amazon (company), and Walmart. His articles have appeared alongside contributions from scholars at Columbia Business School, Yale School of Management, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, and University of California, Berkeley.

Consulting and industry work

Beyond academia, Tedlow has consulted for boards and executives at corporations and organizations including General Electric, IBM, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola Company, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, and Deloitte. He has provided expert commentary for media outlets such as NPR, PBS, BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and Financial Times. Tedlow has advised family enterprises and foundations similar to Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Rothschild family interests, and has worked with non-profit institutions like Smithsonian Institution and Harvard Business School Publishing.

He has participated in corporate retreats, executive programs, and governance seminars involving leaders from ExxonMobil, Chevron Corporation, Shell plc, Siemens, Toyota Motor Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony Corporation, BP, Shell, and Volkswagen Group.

Honors and awards

Tedlow's work has been recognized with fellowships, awards, and invitations from academic and professional bodies including the American Historical Association, Business History Conference, Academy of Management, Mountain-View Global, Fulbright Program, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has received accolades from publishing and business organizations such as Financial Times, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Book Review, and industry groups like National Association of Corporate Directors and Association of American Publishers.

Category:Harvard Business School faculty Category:American historians of business