4 Indians among world's top 50 business gurusDecember 20, 2005 17:07 ISTLast Updated: December 20, 2005 19:22 IST

Four Indians figure amongst the world's top 50 management gurus, according to The Thinkers 50 2005 -- a ranking by the European Foundation for Management Development.

The four Indians on the elite list are University of Michigan professor C K Prahalad (ranked 3rd), CEO coach Ram Charan (ranked 24th), Tuck Business School professor Vijay Govindarajan (ranked 30th), and Harvard professor Rakesh Khurana (ranked 33rd).

Michael Porter, who heads Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, has been voted the world's topmost living management guru.

World's Top 50 Management Gurus1 Michael Porter, Harvard strategy specialist2 Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft3 C K Prahalad, LBS strategy specialist4 Tom Peters, leadership consultant5 Jack Welch, GE's ex-CEO and celebrity6 Jim Collins, author of Good to Great7 Philip Kotler, Kellogg's marketing guru8 Henry Mintzberg, promotes managers not MBAs9 Kjell Nordstrom & Jonas Ridderstrale, funky

business exponents10 Charles Handy, British portfolio worker9911 Richard Branson, entrepreneur and Virgin flyer12 Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert13 Thomas Stewart, Intellectual Capital author14 Gary Hamel, strategy consultant15 Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean

Strategy duo16 Kenichi Ohmae, Japanese strategy master17 Patrick Dixon, futurist and change guru18 Stephen Covey, author of Knows The 7 Habits of

Highly Effective People19 Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard's change manager20 Edward De Bono, Lateral thinker and author21 Clayton Christensen, Harvard's new-tech guru22 Robert Kaplan & David Norton, Balanced Scorecard

creators23 Peter Senge, learning organisation inventor24 Ram Charan, coach to the CEOs25 Fons Trompenaars, intercultural management man26 Russ Ackoff, specialist of systems thinking27 Warren Bennis, humanist leadership guru28 Chris Argyris, action and learning guru29 Michael Dell, Dell Computer's founder30 Vijay Govindarajan, Tuck's strategy innovator

31 Malcolm Gladwell, Blink and Tipping Point guru32 Manfred Kets De Vries, Psychoanalytic economist33 Rakesh Khurana, Harvard labour market guru34 Lynda Gratton, LBS people and strategy guru35 Alan Greenspan, head of US Federal Reserve36 Edgar Schein, MIT organisational psychologist37 Ricardo Semler, Radical CEO of Semco38 Don Peppers, Customer relationship man39 Paul Krugman, economist and columnist40 Jeff Bezos, Amazon boss41 Andy Grove, one of the Intel founders42 Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence inventor43 Leif Edvinsson, professor of intellectual capital44 James Champy, Advocate of re-engineering45 Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones, authentic leaders46 Naomi Klein, No Logo author47 Geert Hofstede, cultural expert48 Larry Bossidy, chair of Honeywell49 Costas Markides, LBS strategy professor50 Geoffrey Moore, hi-tech marketing man

Bill Gates, the co-founder of the world's largest software company Microsoft, is considered the second most influential management guru in the world.

The list names only four women amongst the top 50 business gurus. INSEAD professor Renée Mauborgne is ranked 15th, followed by Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter at 19th slot, London Business School's Lynda Gratton at 34th position and the No Logo author Naomi Klein at 46.

Scott Adams, cartoonist and creator of comic strip Dilbert, has been ranked the 12th most influential management guru.

GE's former chief executive Jack Welch, marketing expert Philip Kotler, Virgin boss Richard Branson, Dell Computers founder Michael Dell too find a place in the list.

The Thinkers 50 ranking is based on votes of businessmen, consultants, scholars, and students.

Peter Drucker, who died on November 11, had been ranked the world's top business guru for the past two years. The European Foundation for Management Development says that the list would also have included London Business School's Sumantra Ghoshal had he been alive.