Peter Drucker

Peter Ferdinand Drucker was born in Vienna on November 19, 1909, and became an Austrian American management consultant, educator, and author who laid the philosophical and practical foundations of modern management theory. He led the development of management education and popularized management by objectives and self-control, treating the field as a serious discipline worthy of rigorous study. His books and articles examined how humans organize themselves across business, government, and nonprofits, and his writings predicted privatization, decentralization, Japan's economic rise, the centrality of marketing, and the information society's demand for lifelong learning. In 1959 he coined the term "knowledge worker," and later turned his attention to knowledge-worker productivity as management's next frontier. He died on November 11, 2005, leaving behind a body of work that made him one of the most widely influential thinkers on management theory and practice.