Ted London


Ted London is an American scholar and teacher on Base of the Pyramid issues. He is on the faculty at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a senior research fellow at the William Davidson Institute. London focuses his research and practice on developing enterprise strategies for low income markets. His latest book, The Base of the Pyramid Promise, was released in early 2016.

Academic experience and research

London’s research interests center on business and development strategies in low income markets, assessment of poverty alleviation impacts, and capability development for cross-sector collaborations. He won the oikos Sustainability Case Writing Competition in 2005 and 2008, the Page Prize in 2011, the Samsung Best Paper Award in 2010, and the Doug Nigh Award in 2010.
London’s work has been published in a number of academic and practitioner journals, and he has written several book chapters. He has been interviewed by Connect, a publication that highlights the work of SNV around the world.
In late 2010, Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid: New Approaches for Building Mutual Value was published. Co-edited with Stuart Hart, authors included Jacqueline Novogratz, Allen Hammond, Robert Kennedy, Erik Simanis, Madhu Viswanathan, and Patrick Whitney.
In 2012, WDI team members London and Ravi Anupindi published an article entitled "Using the base-of-the-pyramid perspective to catalyze interdependence-based collaborations." This article argues that in order for both donor- and enterprise-led value chain initiatives to be both scalable and sustainable, a BoP perspective must be taken so that development and business efforts are better integrated. The article’s research was funded by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2015, London wrote a book entitled The Base of the Pyramid Promise, which was published in early 2016. The book won the Responsible Research in Management Award in 2018 and the Humanistic Management Book Award in 2019. London was awarded the Aspen Faculty Award in 2016.

Professional experience

London was a design engineer for General Motors after graduating from Lehigh University in 1985 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. A few years later he received his MBA from the Peter Drucker Graduate Management Center at Claremont Graduate University and went to work for Deloitte, Haskins & Sells as a senior consultant in business valuation.
He then began his international career, working first in Malawi as a Peace Corps volunteer and later as General Manager of PT Sumatera Tropical Spices in Indonesia. He subsequently joined Conservation International, as Director of Enterprise Development in the Asia-Pacific Region.
In 1996, London became executive director of a non-profit providing business development services to companies in Northern Virginia before pursuing his PhD at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Selected publications

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