Nine from MIT Sloan make Thinkers50 Awards shortlist

Nine faculty members and alumni from MIT Sloan were named this week to the shortlist for the biennial Thinkers50 awards.

The awards—10 in all—will be announced Nov. 9 at an event in London. Thinkers50 also releases a biennial ranked list of 50 top management thinkers.

The 2015 finalists from MIT Sloan are:

Erik Brynjolfsson, PhD ’91, and Andrew McAfee, SB ’88, SB ’89, LFM ’90

Brynjolfsson and McAfee are co-authors of last year’s The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. Brynjolfsson is an MIT Sloan professor and the director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. McAfee is principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Digital Business and the co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.

The pair is nominated for the Digital Thinking Award.

Robin Chase, SM ’86

The co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, Chase this year published Peers Inc: How People and Platforms Are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism. She is also co-founder of vehicle communications company Veniam.

Chase is nominated for both the Breakthrough Ideas Award for Peers Inc. and the Ideas into Practice Award, for which she is nominated along with Zipcar.

Erica Dhawan, MBA ’12

The co-author of this year’s Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, Dhawan is a strategist and keynote speaker. She is nominated for the Radar Award honoring the next generation of business thinkers.

Hal Gregersen

The executive director of the MIT Leadership Center and a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan, Gregersen is the co-author of 2011’s The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Gregersen is nominated for the Leadership Award.

Lee Newman, SM ’92

Newman is a professor of behavioral science and leadership and dean of the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology. He is nominated for the Breakthrough Ideas Award for his concept of behavioral fitness.

Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, PhD ’82

The director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory, Pentland is also a professor at MIT Sloan and leads the big data research program of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. He is the author of 2014’s Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread—the Lessons from a New Science. He is nominated for the Digital Thinking Award.

Doug Ready

A senior lecturer in organization effectiveness at MIT Sloan, Doug Ready was named to the 2013 Thinkers50 list. He is nominated for the Talent Award.

Zeynep Ton

An adjunct associate professor of operations management at MIT Sloan, Ton is the author of 2014’s The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smart Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits. She is nominated for the Talent Award.

Did we miss an MIT Sloan alumnus or faculty member on the Thinkers50 shortlist? Let us know at news@sloan.mit.edu.