Seminar on "The theory of the firm" and "Creating and capturing value in repeated exchange relationships"

Todd Zenger is the newly appointed N. Eldon Tanner Chair in Strategy and Strategic Leadership at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. He also holds the University of Utah designation as a Presidential Professor. From 1990 through July of 2014, he served as a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis in the Olin Business School, most recently as the Robert and Barbara Frick Professor of Business Strategy. He also previously held appointments there as senior associate dean, as chair of the strategy group, and as academic director of the Executive MBA program.  While there he received numerous awards for his executive MBA and professional MBA teaching. 

Professor Zenger completed his undergraduate degree in economics at Stanford University and his PhD in strategy and organization at UCLA.

Professor Zenger is a global expert on topics of corporate strategy, strategic leadership, and organization design. He has lectured widely on these topics to academic audiences at most of the world’s leading business schools, and has broadly published in the leading academic journals in management and strategy, including Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Research Policy, and Management Science. He also currently serves as, or has previously served, as an associate editor or editorial board member for Management Science, Organization Science, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Organization, Strategic Management Journal and Strategy Science. Professor Zenger’s current academic research focuses on a range of topics, including the dynamics of organizational design, the role of capital markets in shaping corporate strategy, and the role of strategic leaders in finding and solving problems.

Professor Zenger is also active in consulting and executive teaching around the topics of strategy and strategic leadership. He has worked with a wide range of clients, including Boeing, Monsanto, Edward Jones, Bunge, Black & Veatch, MSCI, Kellwood, Equifax, Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, Spartech, Hewlett Packard, Smurfit-Stone, Charter Communications, Ameren, AT&T, Maritz Corporation, Boeing, Washington University Medical School, and the State Farm Companies. He also writes and blogs for the Harvard Business Review on topics of strategy, and has had two articles published in the past year entitled, “What is the Theory of Your Firm?” and “Strategy: The Uniqueness Challenge.”  He also has a book forthcoming with HBR Press in June 2016 entitled, Beyond Competitive Advantage: How to Solve the Puzzle of Sustaining Growth while Creating Value.  

Professor Zenger has also served in a variety of professional association roles including executive board member of the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management, as Chair of the INFORMS College on Organization Science, and as Chair of the Strategic Human Capital division of the Strategic Management Society.