Stephen Kaufman

Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School

Biography

Harvard Business School

Mr. Kaufman has been a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School since 2001, teaching in both the MBA program and various Executive Education programs.  He writes, lectures, and consults about board and corporate governance, acquisition strategy and integration, creating disruptive growth through innovative business models and technologies, and operations and supply chain management. The Classes of 2008, 2011, and 2015 recognized Kaufman with its Faculty Award in Teaching, and the administration has twice named him a recipient of the school’s Charles M. Williams Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2010 he spent six months as a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Australian Graduate School of Business at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Mr. Kaufman was the Chairman and CEO of Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE), which he joined in 1982 and retired from in 2002.  During his 14 years as CEO the company completed over 50 acquisitions and grew from a $300 million US-centric corporation to a $12 billion global enterprise ranking within the top 200 companies on the Fortune 500 list.  In 2005, Electronics Business magazine named Kaufman one of the ten most influential executives in the electronics industry over the past 25 years. 

Prior to joining Arrow, he served in executive capacities with Midland-Ross Corporation and for ten years was with McKinsey and Company, where he was a Partner in their Cleveland office focusing on strategy and operations issues for industrial clients.  Mr. Kaufman earned his B.S. degree in economics and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963 and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1965. He received an honorary Doctorate Degree from Dowling College in 1995 and was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from theHarvard Business Schoo lin 1997.

Over the past 20 years Mr. Kaufman has been a Director of six Fortune 500 companies, serving as Non-Executive Chairman of one, Lead Independent Director of another, Chair of the Compensation Committee of three, and Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee of two. He has also been a Board member of two private equity sponsored companies and four venture capital backed startups, as well as several philanthropic and arts organizations in Boston. 

Videos

Courses Taught

Read about executive education

Other experts

Yan Zhang

Education Qualifications Ph.D, Managerial and Organizational Behavior, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, 2009 MBA, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, 2009 M.S., Marketing, Shanghai International Studies University, China, 2002 B.A., Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong Uni...

Adam Lindgreen

Presentation After graduating in engineering, Dr. Adam Lindgreen completed an MSc in food science and technology at the Technical University of Denmark. Subsequently, he studied chemistry and physics at Copenhagen University while working as high school teacher (chemistry, mathematics, science) ...

Looking for an expert?

Contact us and we'll find the best option for you.

Something went wrong. We're trying to fix this error.