Eric J. Van den Steen

Eric Van den Steen is a Professor of Business Administration at HBS, where he teaches strategy. He holds the Roy Little chair, established in honor of the founder of Textron. 

Professor Van den Steen's research studies the fundamentals of strategy and competitive advantage, the role of leaders in strategy, and the interaction between strategy and organization more broadly. He has also researched extensively the role of fundamental disagreement in organizations, with particular attention to its role in culture and managerial vision, and its effect on mergers and acquisitions.

Professor Van den Steen has served as faculty chair of several HBS executive education programs and as course head of the first-year Strategy course at HBS, and has developed the second-year elective Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage.

Prior to joining the Business School, Professor Van den Steen worked in consulting, at Arthur D. Little - founded by an uncle of Roy Little - and McKinsey & Company, and was on the faculty of MIT. He holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the KULeuven (Belgium), an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a PhD from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his family.