John Kay is a globally recognized strategic and policy thinker who is also a leading British economist, business consultant and strategic management scholar. Born and educated in Scotland, he studied at Edinburgh University. He is a visiting Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1986 to 1996 he was a chair professor at London Business School and the founding director of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. He was the first professor of management to receive the academic distinction of Fellowship of the British Academy. Kay was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to economics (ESRC 2014). He is an acclaimed columnist and has contributed a weekly column to the Financial Times for 9 years.

He began his academic career as a Fellow of St John’s College at Oxford in 1970 and worked under James Mirrlees, who won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to economic theory. Having started as a microeconomics economist, his work has evolved from public finance to business economics, dealing with the application of economics to issues in industrial organization and a firm’s competitive advantage. His scholarship covers a very broad canvas. His earlier books include Foundations of Corporate Success (1993) and Why Firms Succeed (1995). A prevailing theme is that the success of a business relies on its strong and distinctive relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, which is essential for social justice and also to make an organization flexible and responsive to change.

His more recent books include The Truth about Markets (2003), The Long and the Short of It: Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in the Industry (2009), and Obliquity (2010). In these books, Kay takes serious ideas in economics such as the utility and limitations of market processes and makes them accessible to a general audience. The central themes in recent work are the negative consequences of the mistaken over emphasis of rationality in finance and modern economics. In Obliquity, Kay uses a range of examples to argue that complex goals are more likely to be achieved when they are pursued indirectly. Kay has been an adviser to companies and governments around the world. In 1979, he became the founding director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank where he worked with James Meade, a Nobel Prize laureate. In 1978, Kay co-authored The British Tax System with Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England, which was published in five editions. In 1986 he founded his own consulting firm, London Economics, which grew into Britain’s largest independent economic consultancy, with annual revenues of $15 million and offices in London, Boston and Melbourne. Kay has also chaired the Review of UK Equity Markets and Long-Term Decision-Making which reported to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2012. He recommends improving the incentives and quality of engagement of market participants and restoring relationships of trust and confidence in the investment chain (BIS 2013). He has been the director of several investment companies including Halifax, one of the largest retail financial services businesses in Europe, and the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.

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