Michael Roberto
Michael Roberto is a Fellow of the Cutter Business Technology & Digital Transformation Strategies practice. He is the Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University. Previously, he served on the faculty at Harvard Business School for six years. He also has been a Visiting Associate Professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.
Professor Roberto is the author of Unlocking Creativity: How to Solve Any Problem and Make the Best Decisions by Shifting Creative Mindsets, which explores the creative process and offers advice about how organizations can remove barriers to innovation. He is also author of Know What You Don't Know, which examines how leaders discover hidden problems and unearth bad news in their organizations before such problems escalate to become major failures and Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes For An Answer, which was named one of the top 10 business books of 2005 by The Globe and Mail. Professor Roberto's blog has been named one of the top 50 business professor blogs in the world.
Professor Roberto's research focuses on strategic decision-making processes, senior management teams, and the dynamics of organizational failures. His research and teaching have earned several major awards: he is a four-time winner of the Outstanding MBA Teaching Award at Bryant University; he twice won Harvard's Allyn Young Prize for Teaching in Economics; Bryant named him the Faculty Mentor of the Year in 2009. His multimedia case study about the 2003 space shuttle accident, titled Columbia's Final Mission, earned the software industry's prestigious Codie Award in 2006 for Best Postsecondary Education Curriculum Solution.
Professor Roberto has taught in the leadership development programs and consulted at a number of firms including Target, Apple, Disney, Mars, Federal Express, Morgan Stanley, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Novartis, Siemens, The Home Depot, and Bank of New York Mellon. He also has presented at government organizations including the FBI, NASA, EPA, and TSA. Over the past six years, Professor Roberto has served on the faculty at the Nomura School of Advanced Management in Tokyo, where he teaches in an executive education program each summer.
Professor Roberto received an A.B. with honors from Harvard College in 1991. He earned an M.B.A. with High Distinction from Harvard Business School in 1995, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. He also received his D.B.A. from the Harvard Business School in 2000.
In the past, Professor Roberto worked as a financial analyst at General Dynamics, where he evaluated the firm's performance on nuclear submarine programs. He also worked as a project manager at Staples, where he played a role in the firm's acquisition integration efforts. He can be reached at consulting@cutter.com.