Jim Collins holds B.S. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University. A visiting professor of business administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business, he is a management consultant. He has written several articles for the Harvard Business Review, Inc., Fortune magazine, California Management Review and Stanford Magazine. He is the co-author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies; Managing the Small to Mid-Sized Firm: Readings, Cases and Instructor's Manual; Beyond Entrepreneurship; and Great by Choice. He has also worked with Hewlett Packard and McKinsey & Co.
Jerry I. Porras is the Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior and Change, Emeritus, at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he served as an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and frequent executive education teacher. He studies ways of aligning companies around their purpose and core values to produce lasting high performance.