C.K.PRAHALAD

Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad, Padma Bushan, (August 8, 1941 – April 16, 2010)^[1] was a globally known figure who was consulted by the top management of many of the world's foremost companies. His research specialized in corporate strategy and the role of top management in large, diversified, multinational corporations. C.K. Prahalad is famous as the father of the concepts of " core competency" and "the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid".

Early life in India

Prahalad was one of nine children born in 1941 in Coimbatore,Tamil nadu. His father was a well-known sanskrit scholar and judge in chennai. At 19, he joined Union Carbide, he was recruited by the manager of the local Union Carbide battery plant after completing his B.Sc degree in Physics from Loyola college,Chennai , part of the University of Madras. He worked there for four years. Prahalad called his Union Carbide experience a major inflection point in his life. Four years later, he did his post graduate work in management at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He met his wife, Gayatri during this time; they married five years later, and subsequently had two children.

Doctorate studies at Harvard

At Harvard Business School, Prahalad wrote a doctoral thesis on multinational management in just two and a half years, graduating with a D.B.A. degree in 1975.

Teacher and professor

After graduating from Harvard, Prahalad returned to India. He taught at his alma-mater the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, but soon returned to the United States. He was appointed to position of the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business in the University of Michigan.

On April 16, 2010, Prahalad died of a previously undiagnosed lung illness in San Diego.