Prahalad world's most influential thinker

C K Prahalad, the India-born management guru and academician, has been voted the world's most influential living management thinker ahead of hands-on managers like Bill Gates, Alan Greenspan and Richard Branson.

Prahalad, who is the first Indian-origin thinker to claim the title, was ranked number three in last year's Thinkers 50 list brought out by Suntop Media.

A professor at the University of Michigans' Stephen M Ross School of Business, Prahalad specialises in corporate strategy research and is a globally known figure consulted by the top management of many of the world's foremost companies.

"Best known for his work with Gary Hamel (ranked 5th) on resource-based strategy, which gave rise to the term core competences, more recently, Prahalad has turned his attention to the plight of the worlds poor," said Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove of Suntop Media.

"In The Bottom of the Pyramid, his 2004 book, he argues that capitalism can be the engine to eradicate poverty," Crainer and Dearlove said in a statement posted on the website Thinkers50.Com.

If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden, and start recognising them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs, a whole new world of opportunity will open up, Prahalad explains in his book.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been ranked second and former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan third. Virgin group founder Richard Branson is placed at number nine.

Three more Indians have made it to the top 50 list include CEO coach Ram Charan (22), and Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck Business School (23) and Harvards' Rakesh Khurana (45).

Only, three women have been able to make it to the list. INSEAD's Rene Mauborgne is the highest placed at No. 6, followed by London Business Schools' Lynda Gratton (19) and Harvards' Rosabeth Moss Kanter (28).

The other renowned names that have appeared on the list are former GE CEO Jack Welch (8), marketing guru Philip Kotler (11), real estate tycoon Donald Trump (20) and Apples' Steve Jobs (29).

Ruling the list were strategy gurus, capturing 10 of the top 50 slots and accounting for four of the top 10. Strategy maven Gary Hamel, whose new book The Future of Management, calls for a reinvention of management stood at number 5, INSEAD-based Korean, W Chan Kim and American Rene Mauborgne, whose best-selling 'Blue Ocean Strategy', created a swell of support that lifts made it to the number 6 slot with Henry Mintzberg at 16 and Richard Daveni, the guru of hyper competition at 46.