E-commerce marketplace Shop.com elected Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business Director Robert A. Burgelman to its board of directors last week.
He joins existing Shop.com board members including founder and chairman Lee Lorenzen; Shop.com CEO Ken Goldstein; co-founder of QVC Inc. and CEO at Longport Inc. Michael C. Boyd; general partner of Oak Investment Partners Fred Harman; and chairman of the board for Earthlink, Vendare and Ironport Systems Bob Kavner.
“While I anticipate that Robert will provide wise counsel on all aspects of our business, his particular strength will be to help us fine-tune and adapt Shop.com’s business strategy given our ongoing growth and evolution,” Mr. Goldstein said.
Burgelman, who was voted in Nov. 20, is the Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management and the director of the Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Prior to joining Stanford in 1981, Burgelman served on the faculties of Antwerp University in Belgium and New York University. From 1991 to 1992, he was a Marvin Bower Faculty Fellow at Harvard Business School.
Burgelman is the author of “Strategy is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company’s Future” and the co-author of “Inside Corporate Innovation: Strategy, Structure, and Managerial Skills” both published by Free Press. He also wrote two texts published by McGraw Hill: “Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation” and “Strategic Dynamics: Concepts and Cases,” as well as a number of academic articles.
He holds a degree in Applied Economics from Antwerp University, Master of Sociology degree and a Doctorate in Management of Organizations degree from Columbia University.
In 2003, he received an honorary doctorate from the Copenhagen Business School for his contributions to the study of corporate innovation. Since 1992, Burgelman has taught a business elective master’s level course titled “Strategy and Action in Information Technology” with Andy Grove, former CEO and chairman at Intel Corp.
Since 1996, Burgelman has served as the director of the Stanford Executive Program. He has taught executive programs and led senior management seminars for major companies worldwide.
He also has served as an adviser to company leaders and on boards of directors and advisory boards of several high-tech companies.
Mr. Burgelman signs on as Shop.com enters the holiday season, which according to Mr. Goldstein’s outlook is optimistic.
He said that Shop.com is set up to take advantage of the predicted double-digit growth that is expected to continue in the online retail market.
“The focus for this past year was to truly integrate our merchant partners’ data so that our customers have all the information they need to make confident decisions about their purchases,” Mr. Goldstein said. “Next year you’re going to see more name brand retailers joining the Shop.com marketplace.”
