Clayton Magleby Christensen was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of "disruptive innovation", which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century.
20 Facts About Clayton Christensen
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Clayton Christensen was a co-founder of Rose Park Advisors, a venture capital firm, and Innosight, a management consulting and investment firm specializing in innovation.
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Clayton Christensen was born on April 6,1952, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the second of eight children born to Robert M Christensen and his wife, Verda Mae Christensen.
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Clayton Christensen grew up in the Rose Park neighborhood of Salt Lake City and attended West High School, where he was student body president.
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Clayton Christensen "decided to make the decision a matter of prayer" and felt a "clear impression" to attend BYU, which had awarded him a full scholarship.
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Clayton Christensen was assigned to serve in South Korea and became a fluent speaker of Korean.
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Clayton Christensen then returned to the United States to attend the Harvard Business School, receiving an MBA with high distinction in 1979.
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Clayton Christensen served as its president and CEO through the late 1980s, then decided to leave the company and become a university professor.
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Clayton Christensen returned to Harvard for doctoral study in business, receiving a Doctor of Business Administration degree in 1992.
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Clayton Christensen served on the board of directors of Tata Consultancy Services, Franklin Covey, and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
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Clayton Christensen served for a time on the editorial board of the Deseret News.
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Clayton Christensen was awarded a full professorship with tenure in 1998, and held eight honorary doctorates and an honorary chaired professorship at the National Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
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Clayton Christensen was the best-selling author of ten books, including his seminal work The Innovator's Dilemma, which received the Global Business Book Award for the best business book of the year.
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However, due to constant misinterpretation, Clayton Christensen often wrote articles trying to explain the concept even further.
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Clayton Christensen served in several leadership positions in the church, including as an area seventy from 2002 to 2009, a counselor in the presidency of the Massachusetts Boston Mission, and as a bishop.
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Clayton Christensen's book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries, was a leading work in the LDS Church on how all people could be involved in sharing the gospel no matter their position in the church.
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Clayton Christensen was a moving force behind the creation of For All The Saints, a book by Kristen Smith Dayley on the history of the LDS Church in New England, published in 2012 to which Christensen wrote the foreword.
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In February 2010, Clayton Christensen was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, and in July 2010 he had an ischemic stroke that damaged his speech and required him to undergo speech therapy.
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In 2011, Clayton Christensen published two books: The Innovative University and The Innovator's DNA.
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Clayton Christensen died from complications of leukemia on January 23,2020, aged 67.