Russell Ackoff was a multifaceted academic and business thinker and was the Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of management science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania at the time of his death.
Born in Philadelphia in 1919, Ackoff has been characterised as an architect, a philosopher, a city planner, behavioural scientist, trailblazer in the field of operations research, the pre-eminent authority on organisational systems theory, and best-selling author. Recognised internationally as a pragmatic academic, Russ, as he was known to all, devoted most of his professional life to dissolving complex societal and organisational problems by engaging all stakeholders in designing solutions. A founding member of the Institute of Management Sciences, his work in consulting and education involved more than 350 corporations and 75 government agencies in the United States and beyond. He has been ranked highly in lists of the world’s most influential business thinkers. But he is perhaps best known for making systems thinking understandable and accessible notably in two books Redesigning the Future (1974) and Creating the Corporate Future (1981).
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