Biography

Jim COLLINS

2003 ranking: 10

After seven years on the faculty at Stanford's Graduate School of Business Jim Collins returned to his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, where he founded a management research laboratory.

Collins is best known for his highly influential book Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (1994) co-authored with fellow Stanford academic Jerry Porras. The culmination of an exhaustive research project analyzing the century's most visionary companies, Built to last was the In Search of Excellence of the 1990s - a heartening dose of humanity at a time when the cold science of reengineering dominated.

At his management research laboratory, in Colorado Collins continues to pursue his interest in enduring companies. It is a subject returned to in his recent bestseller Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don't, (2001). When Collins isn't divining the secrets of corporate success he can often be found in the great outdoors. An accomplished climber he has made a free ascent of "The Big Stone" -El Capitan, the largest monolith in America - and
Washington's Column in Yosemite.

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