Christopher McKenna is particularly interested in the historical development and evolving strategies of professional firms and their role in the global transformation of business, nonprofits, and the state. His first book on the growth of the elite management consulting firms, The World’s Newest Profession, was awarded the 2004-2006 Newcomen-Harvard Book Award by the Business History Review, the 2007 Hagley Prize by the Business History Conference, and named one of the best books of the year by the Financial Times. McKenna’s next book, Partners in Crime, will examine the international history of white collar crime from the 18th century to the present.

McKenna serves on the editorial boards of Organizational & Management History, Enterprise & Society and the Journal of American Studies. He has held elected office in the Management History Research Group, the Association of Business Historians, and the Business History Conference and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. At the University of Oxford, McKenna is a founding member of the Clifford Chance Centre for the Management of Professional Service Firms, a Research Director in the Centre for Corporate Reputation, and a Tutorial Fellow of Brasenose College. Adept in translating his academic work to popular audiences, McKenna’s research has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The Financial Times.

An undergraduate in economics at Amherst College, McKenna first worked on Wall Street, and later in the City of London, before completing a doctorate in history at the Johns Hopkins University. McKenna has held research fellowships at Yale University, the Harvard Business School, and Georgetown Law.  Prior to joining the Saïd Business School in 2000, he taught at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A popular teacher of undergraduates, MBAs and executives, McKenna was nominated as one of Oxford University’s three best teachers for the UK’s National Teaching Fellowship Award both in 2005 and 2006.  He currently serves as the Director of the MBA at Said Business School in Oxford.