About James
Dr. James Manyika is a director of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey’s business and economics research arm, and a director (senior partner) at McKinsey. He is one of the leaders of McKinsey’s High Tech, Media, and Telecom practices where he serves many of the leading companies.
At MGI, James has led research on areas including, growth, productivity, competitiveness, labor markets, and technology and its impact on business and the economy. Much of this work has appeared in journals, books and the op-ed pages of leading news papers and business publications. He has also published a book on distributed networks and decentralized decision theory and numerous academic papers. James has spoken at various global technology, business and policy forums and on radio and television. He serves on the firm’s global committee that reviews and elects McKinsey directors (senior partners).
In 2011, James was appointed by the US Secretary of Commerce to serve on a 15-member innovation advisory board to advise the Secretary and report to Congress on US economic competitiveness and innovation. James is a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, and a trustee of the Aspen Institute, the World Affairs Council of California, and SFJazz. He is on the advisory boards of the Oxford Internet Institute and UC Berkeley’s School of Information, and an advisor to the Global Philanthropy Forum and a member of the research council of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. A Rhodes scholar and a Smith-Rippon senior scholar, James has served on the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee for California. A native of Harare, James lives in San Francisco.
Selected published work
“A great transformer,” The Financial Times Connected Business, November 2011
“An economy that works: Job creation and America's future,” McKinsey Global Institute, June 2011
“Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity,” McKinsey Global Institute, May 2011
“Productivity and growth: The enduring connection,” The Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2011
“Growth and renewal in the United States: Retooling America's economic engine,” McKinsey Global Institute, February 2011
Past experience
| Oxford University |
Engineering faculty |
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| Balliol College, Oxford University |
Research fellow |
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| NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Visiting scientist |
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| MIT |
Faculty exchange fellow |
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Education
| Oxford University |
DPhil, MSc and MA degrees in electrical engineering, mathematics and computer science |
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| University of Zimbabwe |
BSc in electrical engineering (first class) |
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