Sarah Kaplan

Sarah Kaplan is Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy, Distinguished Professor of Gender & the Economy and Professor of Strategic Management at Rotman. She is a co-author of the bestselling business book, Creative Destruction as well as Survive and Thrive: Winning Against Strategic Threats to Your Business. Her latest book, The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation was published in September 2019. Her research has covered how organizations participate in and respond to the emergence of new fields and technologies in biotechnology, fiber optics, financial services, nanotechnology and most recently, the field emerging at the nexus of gender and finance. Her current work focuses on applying an innovation lens to understanding the challenges for achieving gender equality.

Formerly a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (where she remains a Senior Fellow), and a consultant and innovation specialist for nearly a decade at McKinsey & Company in New York, she completed her doctoral research at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has a BA with honors in Political Science from UCLA and an MA in International Relations and International Economics with distinction from the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

She recently authored “Gender Equality as an Innovation Challenge” (2017) in the Rotman Management Magazine, “The Risky Rhetoric of Female Risk Aversion” (2016) in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, “Meritocracy: From Myth to Reality” in the Rotman Management Magazine (2015), and “The Rise of Gender Capitalism,” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (2014).

Research and Teaching Interests

The corporation in society, gender equality, organizational change, strategy formulation, cognitive framing, innovation, technical change

Academic Positions

2020-present

• Fellow, Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Responsibility, University of Toronto

2020-present

• Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto
  

2016-present

• Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy, University of Toronto, Rotman School

2016-present

• Distinguished Professor of Gender and the Economy, University of Toronto, Rotman School

2015-present

• Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto, Rotman School

2009-present

• Senior Fellow, Wharton School, Mack Institute for Innovation Management

2009-2015

• Associate Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto, Rotman School

2013-2014

• Visiting Scholar, MIT Sloan School

2004-2009

• Assistant Professor of Management, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School

Academic / Professional Service

• 2020-present
  Advisory Board, Research in the Sociology of Organizations

• 2016-2018
  Rotman-University of Toronto Press Advisory Board, University of Toronto

• 2018-present
  Steering Committee, Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto

• 2019-present
  Outreach Advisory Committee, School of Cities, University of Toronto

• 2010-2013
  Associate Editor, Academy of Management Annals

• 2010-2020
  Senior Editor, Organization Science

• 2017-2018
  Advisory Committee, Person-Centred Care Initiative, University of Toronto School of Medicine

• 2017-2018
  Equity and Diversity in Research and Innovation (EDRI) Working Group, University of Toronto