19 Facts About Igor Ansoff

Harry Igor Ansoff was a Russian American applied mathematician and business manager.

Igor Ansoff is known as one of the fathers of strategic management.

Igor Ansoff was born in Vladivostok, Russia, on December 12,1918.

Igor Ansoff's father was an American-born Russian from Evansville, Indiana and his mother was a Russian from Moscow.

In 1937, Igor Ansoff graduated with the highest honors at the end of the year, which guaranteed him a four-year scholarship with all expenses paid in the New York State University system.

Igor Ansoff was offered a scholarship at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, one of the best and most expensive engineering schools in the country.

Five years after arriving in New York, Igor Ansoff graduated at the top of his class from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Igor Ansoff had reached the conclusion that he did not want to practice engineering.

Igor Ansoff was married the day after defending his dissertation to his wife Skip, and then traveled to Santa Monica, California, where he joined UCLA in the Senior Executive Program.

The inclusion of "soft metrics" was treated with disdain by RAND and the airforce, and Igor Ansoff learned his first lesson in organizational myopia, which was to become one of his primary concerns some 20 years later.

In 1957 Igor Ansoff left RAND to join the Corporate Planning Department of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

One morning while shaving Igor Ansoff realized that he had no idea of what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Igor Ansoff served as Professor of Industrial Administration in the Graduate School at Carnegie Mellon University from 1963 until 1968.

Igor Ansoff accepted the position under the condition that the school would specialize in educating change agents, a type of manager which was badly needed in industry and not produced by any US school of business at that time.

Igor Ansoff worked as a professor of Management there until 1973.

Igor Ansoff has consulted with hundreds of multinational corporations including, Philips, General Electric, Gulf, IBM, Sterling Airlines and Westinghouse.

Igor Ansoff was awarded five honorary doctorate degrees over the years, including the University of Bath.

Igor Ansoff retired from USIU two years before his death as a distinguished professor emeritus.

Igor Ansoff died of complications from pneumonia in San Diego, California, on July 14,2002.