Donald Sull

Donald Sull is a Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he directs the Strategic Agility Project and the Culture 500. He teaches courses on competitive strategy and strategy execution. Prior to academia, he worked as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company and as a management-investor with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. The Economist named him 'a rising star in a new generation of management gurus' and identified his theory of active inertia as an idea that shaped business management over the past century. Fortune listed him among the ten new management gurus. He has published five books and over 100 cases and articles, including a dozen best-selling Harvard Business Review articles. Sull is the cofounder of CultureX, which leverages proprietary AI to measure and improve corporate culture. He is the chairman of FilmFish and an advisor to several startups, including Betterworks, Tomorrow.io, and eToro. He has advised top teams of more than fifty Fortune Global 500 companies, as well as non-business organizations ranging from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

Donald Sull's research focuses on culture, strategy execution, and organizational agility. His work explores how organizations can thrive in complex and turbulent environments through simple rules and effective leadership. He investigates the dynamics of strategy execution, the role of culture in organizational performance, and the importance of agility in adapting to change. Key themes include the impact of toxic culture on employee retention, the challenges of aligning strategy with execution, and the benefits of remote work. His publications highlight the need for disciplined entrepreneurship, managerial commitments, and the use of promise-based management to drive innovation and resilience.