Jim Collins

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick. Born in Colorado in 1958, he studied at Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematical sciences and an MBA, and he began his research and teaching career on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. There he received the school's Distinguished Teaching Award. In 1995 he left academia to found his own management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, an independent research studio where he has spent nearly three decades studying, with scientific discipline, why some organizations become great and endure while others fall short. That research produced some of the most influential business books ever written. In 1994, with Jerry Porras, he published Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, a study of what it takes to build an enduring great company. In 2001 came Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't, which became one of the best-selling business books of all time and introduced ideas that are now part of the everyday language of leadership: Level 5 Leadership, the Hedgehog Concept, First Who Then What, a culture of discipline, and the Flywheel. Across his career, his books have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. He has continued to build on that foundation. How the Mighty Fall (2009) examined the stages of corporate decline. Great by Choice (2011), written with Morten Hansen, studied how some companies thrive amid uncertainty and introduced the 20 Mile March and Return on Luck. Turning the Flywheel (2019) deepened one of his best-known concepts, and BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0) (2020), co-authored with his mentor Bill Lazier, revisited the practices of building an enduring organization. In 2026 he published What to Make of a Life, extending his research from great companies to well-lived individual lives. Collins works with leaders across sectors, from corporations to social-sector and government organizations, and he has taught leadership to groups ranging from the United States Marine Corps to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he held the Class of 1951 Chair for the Study of Leadership. He was named one of Forbes' "100 Greatest Living Business Minds" and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Colorado and the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management. An avid rock climber for more than 30 years, Jim often draws on the discipline of climbing, exhaustive preparation and relentless risk management, as a metaphor for leadership. He still works from his laboratory in Boulder, where the mountains that shaped his thinking remain his backyard.