Michael A Cusumano - Agenda Setters 2009

Name: Michael A Cusumano

Title: Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

Position: 48    Last year: Not ranked

Why? For altering the way the business cycle of tech firms is viewed

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Michael Cusumano has quite simply "changed the way we think about the business cycle of computer firms", according to one Agenda Setters panellist.

It's an influence he's exerted through wearing a number of different hats including the one he's perhaps best known for - writing a series of books on technology companies including The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad.

He's also a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, where he teaches the next generation of software gurus about strategy, product development and entrepreneurship in the industry.

But, like many Agenda Setters before him, Cusumano deals in practice as well as theory: he's provided advice to a range of technology start-ups, acts as a director for others and has consulted for many of the industry's heavy hitters including the likes of IBM, Intel and Nokia.