Creating Emerging Markets explores the evolution of business leadership in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. At its core are interviews, with leaders or former leaders of highly impactful businesses and NGOs. It began with a pilot project led by Professor Geoffrey Jones which involved Dr. Andrea Lluch undertaking a set of audio interviews in Argentina and China during 2007 and 2008. The project was relaunched in 2012 with a broader geographical remit and video interviews. Since 2016 it has been co-ordinated by Professor Geoffrey Jones and Professor Tarun Khanna. These interviews address pivotal moments of transition in their regions. They contain compelling insights on entrepreneurship, innovation, family business, and the globalization of firms and brands. Emphasizing ways that businesses can create value for their societies, the project provides a unique resource for research and teaching. From the beginning, it was envisaged as a public goods project, designed to be available without charge to scholars and educators worldwide. See selected clips on the HBS YouTube channel. Click here to see our regional newsletters.
Who do we interview?
Faculty members from Harvard Business School lead the project. They take an active role in identifying interview candidates in collaboration with the School’s Global Research Centers and the MBA community. Faculty affiliated with other schools within Harvard and former HBS faculty have also played an important role. This includes: Emmanuel Akyeampong, Don Babai, Asli Colpan, Kristin Fabbe, Valeria Giacomin, Jerold S. Kayden, Andrea Lluch, Aldo Musacchio, Euvin Naidoo, Laura Phillips Sawyer, Sudev J. Sheth, and Thales Teixeira. CEM also works closely with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Harvard University Center for African Studies, and the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University to identify new interviewees. In Latin America, the project has benefited from the support of Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, and Universidad del Pacifico, Lima, Peru. Candidates are selected not only for their exceptional achievements, but also for the unique perspectives that they offer on the ways in which their industries have changed over time. Thus, interviewees are typically men and women who are able to reflect back over three or four decades in business.
“As President of the Africa Business Club, I felt privileged to help make the connections which enabled African business leaders to be participants in the Creating Emerging Markets project.”
Project Impact
Since its inception, the Creating Emerging Markets project website has had 600,000 visits from scholars in some 200 countries.
