Stuart Gilson

Professor Stuart Gilson is the Steven R. Fenster Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and former chairman of the Finance Area of the School. Professor Gilson’s research, teaching, and consulting activities focus on the operational, financial, and legal strategies that companies use to revitalize their business, improve performance, and create value when operating in a challenging business environment. He is an expert on corporate restructuring, valuation, business bankruptcy, credit analysis, financial analysis, and financial strategy.

Professor Gilson’s research has been published by leading academic and practitioner journals and has been cited by the national news media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week, and Bloomberg. His work has received numerous honors, including the prestigious Graham and Dodd Award for his article on investment strategies used by credit-oriented investors to acquire control and create value in highly leveraged and financially distressed companies.

For twenty years he has taught one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s MBA curriculum, Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring. He currently teaches in the Advanced Management Program, and has taught in a variety of Harvard’s other Executive Education programs, including Finance For Senior Executives, CEO/WPO, and Corporate Restructuring, Mergers and Acquisitions.

Professor Gilson has written more than sixty Harvard Business School case studies and teaching notes that are used in business schools throughout the world. A number of these cases have been published in his book Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies in Bankruptcies, Buyouts, and Breakups (John Wiley & Sons), now in its second edition.

Professor Gilson serves as a consultant for a variety of companies and organizations. He has provided focused executive training programs for a number of Fortune 500 companies. He is currently a director of Advanced Alloy Processing LLC. He has served on the advisory boards of various for-profit and non-profit organizations, including the Academic Advisory Board of the Turnaround Management Association (as co-chair) and several investment funds. He provides expert testimony on business valuation, corporate restructuring and bankruptcy, credit analysis, and corporate finance, and is an academic affiliate of Cornerstone Research, a leading economic consulting firm.

Professor Gilson received his B.A. degree from the University of Manitoba; his Masters degree from the University of British Columbia; and his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Rochester, New York. He lives with his wife in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) University of Rochester - Simon Business School (1983 — 1988)
• Master’s Degree The University of British Columbia (1980 — 1981)
• Bachelor’s Degree University of Manitoba (1976 — 1980)

Companies

• Steven R. Fenster Professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School (1991)
• Assistant Professor McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin (1988 — 1991)
• Research Economist Bank of Canada (1981 — 1983)