Robert S. Kaplan is the Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, and Chairman of Professional Practice at Palladium Group, Inc. Kaplan joined the HBS faculty in 1984 after spending 16 years on the faculty of the Carnegie-Mellon University business school, where he served as Dean from 1977 to 1983.

Kaplan has focused on linking cost and performance management systems to strategy implementation and operational excellence. He has been a co-developer of activity-based costing and the co-author (with David P. Norton, below) of the seminal book The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action (1996). He has authored or co-authored 14 books, 20 Harvard Business Review articles, and more than 130 other papers.

In 2006, Kaplan was elected to the Accounting Hall of Fame. The Institute of Management Accountants selected him in 2008 for a special Lifetime Award for Distinguished Contributions to Advancing the Management Accounting Profession; in 2006, the Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association (AAA) selected him for its Lifetime Contribution Award. Kaplan received the Outstanding Accounting Educator Award in 1988 from the AAA and the 1994 CIMA Award from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) for "Outstanding Contributions to the Accountancy Profession."

Kaplan has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T., and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University.

Dr. Norton is a founder and director of the Palladium Group, an organization specializing in systems and processes to improve the execution of business strategy.

A frequent lecturer and author, Dr. Norton is best known for his work with the Balanced Scorecard, which has been the subject of many conferences and articles. He is the co-author, with Robert S. Kaplan, of eight Harvard Business Review (HBR) articles and five books, most recently The Execution Premium (2008). His books have sold more than one million copies in 23 different languages.

The Balanced Scorecard concept was selected by the editors of the Harvard Business Review as one of the most influential management ideas of the past 75 years. Dr. Norton was voted on as one of the world's 12 most influential management thinkers by Sun Top Media's "Thinkers 50" for 2007. Drs. Norton and Kaplan were recently honored with the "Champion of Workplace Learning and Performance Award (2008)" by ASTD (The American Society for Training and Development).

Dr. Norton earned a BS in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an MS in operations research from the Florida Institute of Technology, an MBA from Florida State University, and his doctorate in business administration from Harvard Business School.

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