ABSTRACT
In 2008, after the publication in the Wall Street Journal of a definitive list of top management gurus without a single woman on it, Tom Davenport suggested that correcting this issue would be relatively straightforward. All women had to do was 1) keep at it for a long time; 2) write a huge best-seller; 3) find a regular outlet and publish extensively in it; 4) avoid being a second author; 5) live in the United States; and 6) write about broad, sweeping, preferably intergalactic topics! (Davenport, 2008). Fast forward to today and while there are many more female candidates for guru status, the criteria haven't changed all that much. In this paper, Rita McGrath and Floward Thomas look at how McGrath pursued this pattern and consider the implications for greater gender diversity in business school education and leadership.
