C.K. Prahalad is widely acknowledged as one of the world's most significant forces in corporate thinking. He has been voted the world's most influential living management thinker and is the first Indian-origin thinker to claim the title. His research specialises in corporate strategy and the role and value added of top management in large, diversified, multinational corporations. He has helped companies such as AT&T, Ahlstrom, Honeywell, Rockwell, and Steelcase look at their core capabilities and market opportunities in a transformational way.

Professor Prahalad is a graduate from the University of Madras, the Indian Institute of Management and Harvard University. He has written extensively on core competency and strategy, and has published several best selling business books and award-winning articles. His book, co-authored Competing for the Future with Gary Hamel, was rated a best-seller, and has been printed in fourteen languages.

A brilliant teacher at the University of Michigan Professor Prahalad is known as the inventor of the concept of core competencies. He urges firms to focus on their strategies around "core competencies" - what they do best - and to leverage those and future competencies. He has appeared within the top ten of every management strategy survey worldwide for the past 10 years