Stephen P. Kaufman

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. 

Journal Articles

• Kaufman, Stephen P. "Evaluating the CEO." First Person. Harvard Business Review 86, no. 10 (October 2008). View Details
• Christensen, Clayton M., Stephen P. Kaufman, and Willy C. Shih. "Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things." Special Issue on HBS Centennial. Harvard Business Review 86, no. 1 (January 2008). View Details

Cases and Teaching Materials

• van Bever, Derek C. M., Stephen P. Kaufman, James Barnett, and Shaye Roseman. "Beyond Beer: Brewing Innovation at Molson Coors." Harvard Business School Case 321-008, August 2020. View Details
• Kaufman, Stephen P. "Arrow Electronics—The Apollo Integration." Harvard Business School Case 619-046, January 2019. View Details
• Kaufman, Stephen P. "Online Education at HBS." Harvard Business School Case 615-077, May 2015. (Revised January 2016.) View Details
• Kaufman, Stephen P., and Laura Winig. "Drilling Safety at BP: The Deepwater Horizon Accident." Harvard Business School Case 611-017, October 2010. (Revised May 2012.) View Details
• Shih, Willy, Stephen P. Kaufman, and Rebecca McKillican. "Dollar General (A)." Harvard Business School Case 607-140, May 2007. (Revised November 2019.) View Details
• Shih, Willy C., Stephen P. Kaufman, and David Spinola. "Netflix." Harvard Business School Case 607-138, May 2007. (Revised April 2009.) View Details
• Shih, Willy C., Stephen P. Kaufman, Melissa Marie Blakeley, and Marissa Wairy Dent. "Opening Pandora's Box." Harvard Business School Case 607-135, June 2007. (Revised April 2009.) View Details
• Christensen, Clayton M., and Stephen P. Kaufman. "Assessing Your Organization's Capabilities: Resources, Processes and Priorities." Harvard Business School Module Note 607-014, September 2006. (Revised August 2008.) View Details
• Kaufman, Stephen P. "Arrow Electronics--The Apollo Acquisition." Harvard Business School Case 607-007, August 2006. (Revised September 2012.) View Details

Areas of Interest

• boards of directors
• general management
• mergers and acquisitions
• operations strategy
• strategy
Additional Topics
• IT strategy
• business marketing
• corporate governance
• disruptive technology
• electronic commerce
• information technology
• innovation
• leadership
• managing growth
• operations management
• performance management
• service operations
• strategy implementation
• supply chain management
Industries
• computer
• distribution
• e-commerce industry
• electronics
• information technology industry
• management consulting
• manufacturing
• semiconductor
• wholesale