Edward Freeman

Ed Freeman is a charismatic and humorous speaker. His speeches contain references that range from Plato and Aristotle to Muddy Waters and the Grateful Dead. He has presented to thousands of executives all over the world on a range of topics. He is best known for his work in business ethics and stakeholder management, where he uses both insightful business analysis and humor to get executives to examine their own companies to make them better able to cope with the ethical and strategic challenges in business.

For the past 20 years Freeman has written and presented about the idea of "stakeholder management" and is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of this important concept. He received a Pioneer Award from the World Resources Institute and the Aspen Institute's Program on Social Responsibility for his achievements. They said: "Edward Freeman has revolutionized the thinking, teaching, and practice of strategic management by finding new ways to approach traditional challenges". His style and commitment have influenced innumerable MBA and executive education students as well as many management scholars. Freeman's pioneering conceptualization of stakeholder analysis has become a staple of academic writing and decision-making models. It also serves as the basis of a large consulting practice with many Fortune 1000 companies. With his depth of impact, his breadth of knowledge and his generosity in sharing it with clients, colleagues, and students, Edward Freeman embodies the ideal of "lifetime achievement" in the field of social impact management.

In the academic world he has been recognized by the Academy of Management. His book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach won the Social Issues Division's Book Award and he received the Sumner Marcus Award for his lifetime contributions in social issues in management. This book is widely credited with pioneering the idea that managers need to be responsive to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, an idea that has subsequently been endorsed by an increasing number of CEOs.

His Management textbook (with co-authors) has been used to educate a generation of management students about how to put together ethics and values with traditional ideas about management. The last edition sold over 100,000 copies. Tom Peters called his Corporate Strategy And The Search For Ethics, a "...brilliant book [which] transformed the business ethics 'model' in one fell swoop".

Freeman has been a lecturer and keynote speaker at universities around the world. In addition, he has been a consultant and speaker to universities and business schools on how they can integrate ethics into the curriculum. He has been an advisor, consultant and editorial review board member for many top journals and publishers including Business Ethics Quarterly, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, McGraw Hill, Prentice Hall and others.

Freeman is the author or editor of 20 books and journal issues and he has written more than fifty articles in a wide variety of publications. In addition he is the editor of the 15 volume Ruffin Series in Business Ethics published by Oxford University Press.

His most recent books are Environmentalism And The New Logic Of Business (with J. Pierce and R. Dodd), The Portable MBA<.em>, 4th edition (with R. Bruner, M. Eaker, R. Spekman, E. Teisberg, and V. Venkatarman), The Blackwell's Handbook Of Strategic Management(with M. Hitt and J. Harrison), Management, 6th Edition (with J. Stoner and D. Gilbert), and Corporate Strategy And The Search For Ethics (with D. Gilbert, Jr.).