Jan Rivkin

Jan W. Rivkin is the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS).  His research, course development, and teaching focus on two topics: business strategy and U.S. competitiveness.

Rivkin co-chaired HBS’s project on the competitiveness of the United States, an effort that ran from 2011 to 2024.  In that role, he worked with a faculty team to explore steps that leaders—especially business leaders—can take to improve the ability of firms in the U.S. to win in the global marketplace while lifting American living standards.

Rivkin’s work on U.S. competitiveness focuses on how leaders of American cities can foster cross-sector collaboration for shared prosperity, how managers choose to locate business activities in the United States or elsewhere, and how business leaders can best work with educators to improve America’s schools.  He helps to lead HBS’s Young American Leaders Program, which brings together rising leaders from cities across America for a boot camp in cross-sector collaboration.

Rivkin has also served as chair of HBS’s Strategy Unit (2009-14), senior associate dean for research (2015-18), and faculty chair of the MBA Program (2018-22). He was educated at Princeton (BSE), the London School of Economics (MSc), and Harvard (PhD).