Peter Cohan

Peter Cohan Speaker Biography

Leading Expert on Business Strategy, Entrepreneurship,
Technology and Management

Peter Cohan teaches strategy and entrepreneurship to at Babson College. He also developed and teaches Foundations of Entrepreneurial Management for undergraduate transfer students. Cohan joined Babson in May 2002, as an executive-in-residence, advising teams in their consulting work with companies through Management Consulting Field Experience (MCFE) programs. In June 2016, he was promoted to a full-time Lecturer of Strategy. And in August 2022, Babson appointed him an Associate Professor of Management Practice.

Babson College

He created and led the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Start-up Strategy Offshore elective for MBA students and taught the Strategy and the CEO capstone in the evening MBA program. For the Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership (MSEL) program he created and teaches the Global Entrepreneurship Experience — Israel course. He also created and teaches Strategic Transformation in Babson’s Master of Science in Advanced Entrepreneurial Leadership (MSAEL) Program. For undergraduates, he created and runs the Paris, Israel and Portugal/Spain Start-up Strategy Offshore electives. In May 2020, he launched an undergraduate elective — The Israel Startup Ecosystem. In February 2021, he was appointed a Member of the Faculty Board of Advisors at Babson’s Butler Institute for Free Enterprise through Entrepreneurship.

Index Systems

Cohan began his career at Index Systems, a management consulting firm founded by several MIT professors. While there he worked with James A. Champy, co-author (with former MIT professor, Michael Hammer) of Reengineering the Corporation (HarperBusiness, 1993). Following business school, Cohan worked at The Monitor Company, a strategy consulting firm co-founded by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. Cohan then worked in strategic planning at Bank of Boston and in the Finance Department of Liberty Mutual.

Peter S. Cohan & Associates

In 1994, Cohan started Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. His management consulting unit helps managers with strategy, best practices, operational improvement, and litigation support. Since 1981, Cohan has completed over 100 consulting projects.

Venture Capital

His venture capital business has invested in seven companies including Andromedia, an Internet software company, which Macromedia purchased in 1999 for $440 million; SupplierMarket.com, an online marketplace for industrial supplies, which Ariba purchased in 2000 for $930 million; and Lexar Media, a digital media company that was sold in 2006 to Micron Technology (MU) for $690 million. In December 2014, he invested in Social Finance, a peer-to-peer lending company in San Francisco, which went public in June 2021 at a valuation of $18 billion billion in a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Corp V, a publicly-traded Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC).

Books

Cohan has authored 17 books and contributed to six management compendiums. His most recent book is Brain Rush: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Generative AI . He also wrote Goliath Strikes Back: How Traditional Retailers Are Winning Back Customers from Ecommerce Startups. Prior to that he authored Scaling Your Startup: Mastering the Four Stages from Idea to $10 billion, Startup Cities: Why Only a Few Cities Dominate the Global Startup Scene and What the Rest Should Do About It, Disciplined Growth Strategies: Insights from the Growth Trajectories of Successful and Unsuccessful Companies, and Hungry Start-Up Strategy: Creating New Ventures with Limited Resources and Unlimited Vision. His other books include Export Now: Five Keys to Entering New Markets (co-authored with Frank Lavin), Capital Rising: How Capital Flows Are Changing Business Systems All Over the World (co-authored with U. Srinivasa Rangan), You Can’t Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney’s Turnaround at Boeing, Value Leadership: The Seven Principles That Drive Corporate Value in Any Economy, e-Stocks: Finding the Hidden Blue Chips Among the Internet Impostors, e-Profit: High Payoff Strategies for Capturing the E-Commerce Edge, Net Profit: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Internet Business, and The Technology Leaders: How America’s Most Profitable High Tech Companies Innovate Their Way to Success.

Publications

Cohan has published articles in Business Strategy Review and Knowledge@Wharton; he writes two columns: Forbes Startup Economy and Inc, The Hungry Start-Up. With Babson Professor Sam Hariharan, Cohan has co-authored six published cases: Apple’s Electric Vehicles (2024), Reviving Edwards Life Sciences (2022), Apple in China and India (2020), Growing Pains at Commonwealth Dairy (2016), Warren Buffett and His Newspaper Investments (2014), and Chokehold on Live Entertainment (2010).

Strategic Problem Solving

Cohan serves on the Babson faculty senate and as coordinator for Strategic Problem Solving, the required capstone strategy course for undergraduates. He also served on the small business subcommittee of President Joe Biden’s Economic Policy Committee.

Media

Cohan is a frequent commentator on developments in economics, technology, and finance. He has been a guest on ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, CNBC, PBS’s Wall $treet Week, Boston’s local ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates and New England Cable News (NECN). He has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Barron’s, Red Herring, Time, Business Week, Fortune, and Newsweek International.

Keynote Speaker

He has spoken at MIT’s Sloan School 2020 Retail Conference, Stanford University’s Forum for American/Chinese Exchange (FACES) and taught in its Industry Thought Leaders program, Columbia University’s Senior Executive Program, as the Verizon Visiting Professor in Business Ethics at Bentley University, as a visiting professor at EADA in Barcelona, at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Monterrey in Mexico, Tel Aviv University, School of Management Fribourg (Switzerland) and other universities in Europe and Asia. He has also conducted management development programs in the US and Asia sponsored by leading corporations, such as IBM, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Fidelity Investments, and Procter & Gamble.

Movie

Cohan also appeared in the 2016 movie, We the People: The Market Basket Effect.