Henry Chesbrough 
Adjunct Professor | Mike and Carol Meyer Fellow | Faculty Director, Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation | Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES
Innovation thought leader who launched the "Open Innovation" paradigm
Spotlight
Areas of Expertise (7)
Open Innovation
Open Innovation and Business Models
Comparative Industry Evolution
Innovation
Innovation Strategy
Business Development
Managing Intellectual Property
About
Henry Chesbrough, who coined the term "open innovation," is educational director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at Berkeley Haas. His research focuses on technology management and innovation strategy. He also teaches at Esade Business School at Spain's University Ramon Llull. He has been an adjunct professor at the Harvard Business School and previously served as product manager and vice president of marketing at Quantum Corporation, a manufacturer of data storage devices and systems. He earned a BA in economics from Yale University, an MBA from Stanford University, and a PhD in business administration from Berkeley Haas.
Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external and internal ideas and paths to market to advance their technology. The central idea behind open innovation is that—in a world of widely distributed knowledge where the boundaries between a firm and its environment have become more permeable—companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research but should instead buy or license processes or inventions from other companies. In addition, internal inventions not being used in a firm's business should be taken outside the company (e.g., through licensing, joint ventures, spin-offs).
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Education (3)
Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley: PhD, Business Administration and Public Policy
Stanford University: MBA, Highest Honors
Yale University: BA, Summa Cum Laude, Economics
Links (4)
Honors & Awards (12)
Honoris Causa Doctorate: Universitat de Vic, Spain
2014
Honoris Causa Doctorate: Hessalt University, Belgium
2013
Berkeley Haas "Leading Through Innovation" Award
2009
"Open Business Models" named in Top Ten Books on Innovation
Businessweek Magazine
2006
Scientific American Top 50 Business and Technology Leaders
2003
"Open Innovation" named Best Business Book on Innovation
Strategy and Business Magazine
2003
NEDO/METI scholarship for research on spin-offs
March 2003
Sasakawa Foundation Research Fellow, Haas School of Business
2002 and 2003
Class of 1961 Fellow, Harvard Business School
1999
Robert Noyce Memorial Fellowship in Industrial Competitiveness
Intel Foundation
1995-1997
Awarded Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor at UC Berkeley
1996
Leadership in Technology Management Award
PICMET (Portland International Center for Management of Engineering & Technology)
August 2019
Selected External Service & Affiliations (4)
- Member, Editorial Board, Research Policy and California Management Review
- Academy of Management – BPS, OMT, TIM Divisions
- Ad hoc reviewer, California Management Review, Research Policy, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Industrial and Corporate Change
- Board member, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management
Positions Held (1)
At Haas since 2003
2005 – present, Adjunct Professor, Haas School of Business
2003 – present, Executive Director, Center for Open Innovation, Haas School of Business
1997 – 2003, Assistant Professor and Class of 1961 Fellow, Harvard Business School
1983 – 1995, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development and other product marketing positions, Plus Development Corporation, an entrepreneurial subsidiary of Quantum Corporation
Media Appearances (12)
Wilkes-Barre Connect leader shares experiences from Boston event
Times Leader online
2019-05-19
The Boston Innovation Festival, held May 14-16, featured a keynote by Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, faculty director of the Garwood Center.
The pioneer trail towards open innovation
150Sec online
2019-05-01
A Vienna-based conference addressed open innovation, a concept introduced by Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, faculty director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation.
Biscay will show off its entrepreneurial ecosystem in Madrid on Feb. 7
El Correo online
2019-01-18
The Basque province of Biscay wants innovation to spur entrepreneurship, government officials said. Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, will be present at an upcoming conference to talk about his concept, open innovation.
To innovate, why not collaborate
Asian Scientist online
2018-10-11
More than 15 years ago, Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, noticed a shift away from the old paradigm of siloed R&D towards a model of innovation that was more borderless and fluid. He coined the term ‘open innovation’ in 2003; now collaboration is one of the flagship strategies for business growth.
Made to measure: When off the shelf won’t do
Medical Plastics News online
2018-10-05
More medical device businesses are embracing open innovation. A fundamental tenet is "firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology," according to Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation.
Inside X, the moonshot factory racing to build the next Google
Wired
2018-07-11
X is Google's focused attempt to find a formula for turning out revolutionary products that don’t just sit on a screen but interact with the physical world. It's a way to avoid what Xerox did, failing to capitalize on the birth of computing, according to Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation.
The changing shape of innovation
Global Intelligence for the CIO
2018-05-31
The article names Adj. Prof. Henry Chesbrough, faculty director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, as a true guru of innovation. He's a visionary thinker with the ability to articulate inspiring business truths and back up those truths with compelling evidence and detailed research.
Open Innovation: Henry Chesbrough on Barriers, Success Stories, and Business Unit Support
Innovation Leader
2018-03-09
The term sometimes refers to the strategy of bringing in concepts and inventions from the outside—or it can also mean making your company’s data, platform, or intellectual property accessible to others who’d like to build things with it.
But amidst all of the idea challenges and hackathons, the term “open innovation” has been getting overused and abused. (Not every meeting with a startup or visit to a university lab counts as open innovation.) And there’s a difference between the “outside-in” and “inside-out” approaches to open innovation.
Seven Revolutionary Leadership Ideas That Will Change The Way You Run Your Organization
Forbes
2018-02-28
Giving valuable—if unused—ideas away might seem like a crazy business strategy on the face of it. But according to Henry Chesbrough, faculty director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, it allows you to undertake free market research on alternative business models since other organizations may take a very different approach to exploiting the idea than yours would. “If the venture finds a good fit with the market, you have an option: take a piece of the growth, or reacquire the venture and scale it inside, or do nothing,” he says.
More innovation needed from top tech companies
Financial Times
2017-11-23
It was Henry Chesbrough, a professor at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, who coined the term “open innovation” in his book on the topic, published in 2003.
How to Launch a Product Without Starting a Business
Inc.
2017-11-02
One major reason why? Technology has enabled the phenomenon known as open innovation to thrive. Open innovation is a paradigm shift that embraces the benefits of transparency and collaboration as they relate to idea-sharing. Dr. Henry Chesbrough, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, first described the concept at length in his 2003 book of the same name.
Need a Breakthrough? Offer Prize Money!
Wall Street Journal
2016-12-13
“These prizes have all this attractive potential, but there is a lot more needed for these to have a business impact,” says Henry Chesbrough, director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Selected Papers & Publications (6)
M Bogers, H Chesbrough, C Moedas
January 2018
Sabine Brunswicker & Henry Chesbrough
January 2018
Henry Chesbrough and Xiaohong Quan
2010
Henry Chesbrough, Oliver Gassmann and Ellen Enkel
2009
Henry Chesbrough
2006
Henry Chesbrough
2003
Teaching (3)
Managing Innovation
MBA 290I
Introduction to the Management of Technology
MBA 290A
Innovation in Services and Business Models
MBA 290T
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