Melissa Schilling: Breakthrough innovators who changed the world

This is an event in the Ideas in Practice series taking place in London on 13 June 2018

What makes some people so spectacularly innovative, producing triumph after triumph, often in fields in which they have no specialised training?

Join us at the British Academy where Melissa Schilling will share insights from her new book 'QUIRKY: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World' (Public Affairs; February 13, 2018). Leading innovation expert Melissa Schilling delves deeply into the lives of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs to identify the traits and experiences that led them to become serial breakthrough innovators - and might allow us to do the same. 

This engaging new book provides an opportunity to consider how these insights can be applied to ourselves, our work, our children, and the seemingly intractable problems we face as a society.  

For further information, please contact the Research Office at research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk

About the speaker

Melissa A. Schilling is the Herzog Family Professor of Management at New York University Stern School of Business. She received her Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She received her Doctor of Philosophy in strategic management from the University of Washington. Professor Schilling’s research focuses on innovation and strategy in high technology industries such as smartphones, video games, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, electric vehicles, and renewable energies. She is particularly interested in platform dynamics, networks, creativity, and breakthrough innovation. Her textbook, Strategic Management of Technological Innovation (now in its fifth edition), is the number one innovation strategy text in the world. She is also coauthor of Strategic Management: An integrated approach (now in its twelfth edition).

Her research in innovation and strategy has earned her awards such as the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award, and the Best Paper in Management Science and Organization Science for 2007 Award. Her research has also appeared in leading academic journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and Research Policy. She also sits on the editorial review boards of Organization Science, Strategic Organization, Strategy Science, and Academy of Management Discoveries. Professor Schilling teaches courses in technology and innovation management, strategic management, corporate strategy, and strategy for social-mission-based organizations.