Rebecca Henderson

Rebecca Henderson is one of 25 University Professors at Harvard, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of both the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy. Rebecca sits on the boards of Idexx Laboratories and of CERES. Her most recent publication is Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire,” which was shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year Award.

Professor Henderson’s current research focuses on the energy, information technology, and real estate sectors and the challenges firms encounter as they attempt to act in more sustainable ways. This work is an outgrowth of her decade-long examination of the organizational and strategic issues that well-established companies face in responding to significant technological and competitive shifts across a wide variety of industries, including semiconductor capital equipment, aerospace, branded consumer goods, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, information technology, and telecommunications.

Her latest work is motivated by the challenge of climate change. If, as current scientific research suggests, it would be prudent to remove 80 percent of the carbon from the economy by 2050, it is critical to find effective ways to support far-reaching change in both products and processes across the entire economy – and particularly in the energy, information technology, and real estate sectors. Increasing the use of carbon-free fuels is an undertaking of enormous magnitude to the energy industry; real estate is perhaps the largest single consumer of energy; and information technology is the most powerful enabler of change throughout the economy.

In conducting this new research, Professor Henderson is attempting to leverage the insights she has gained in studying large firms that have been particularly successful in responding to major technological shifts. Her previous work highlighted the importance of simultaneously understanding the strategic barriers to change (“We won’t make any money.”) and the organizational barriers as well (“And we won’t be able to get it done anyway.”); of managing overload so that a firm does not become “stuck”; and of learning to communicate with courage and integrity in order to maintain and grow the “relational contracts” that are fundamental to success. Her current research, including work with two large oil companies interested in investing in alternative energy, suggests that these findings are highly relevant to building a low-carbon economy.

Companies

• Board Member Ceres, Inc. (2017)
• John and Natty McArthur University Professor Harvard University (2011)
• Board Member Amgen (2009)
• Board Member IDEXX (2003)
• Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management Harvard Business School (2009 — 2011)
• Eastman Kodak LFM Professor MIT Sloan School of Management (1999 — 2009)

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Harvard University (1983 — 1988)
• Bachelor of Science - BS Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1978 — 1981)