Stuart Crainer (born 1962) is an author, editor, adviser and entrepreneur.
He is co-founder of Thinkers50, the global platform for management ideas. His book credits include The Financial Times Handbook of Management, The Management Century and a biography of the management guru Tom Peters.
He is a former columnist to The (London) Times and contributing editor to the American magazine Strategy+Business.
In the 1990s he also worked as a ghostwriter on a number of bestselling business books and was editor of the award-winning magazine Business Strategy Review.
His long-time co-author and business partner is Des Dearlove. Their books, available in more than 15 languages, include Gravy Training and Generation Entrepreneur. His work with Dearlove in business thought leadership led Management Today to describe them as “market makers par excellence”.
Crainer is an adjunct professor at IE Business School in Madrid, director of the Business Ecosystem Alliance and is also the author of Atlantic Crossing.
Selected publications
The Decline and Rise of British Industry (with David Clutterbuck), Mercury, 1988
Makers of Management (with David Clutterbuck), Macmillan, 1990
Zeebrugge: Learning from Disaster, HFA, 1993
What Do High Performance Managers Really Do? (with Phil Hodgson), Pitman, 1993
The Financial Times Handbook of Management (ed.), FT Pitman, 1995
The Real Power of Brands, Pitman, 1995
Making Re-engineering Happen (with Eddie Obeng), Pitman, 1995
How to Have a Brilliant Career, Pitman, 1995
The Future of Leadership (with Phil Hodgson and Randall White), Financial Times Prentice Hall, 1996
The Tom Peters Phenomenon, Capstone, 1997
The Ultimate Business Library, Capstone, 1997
The Ultimate Business Guru Book, Capstone, 1997
The Ultimate Book of Business Quotations, Capstone, 1997
Leaders on Leadership (ed.), Pitman, 1998
Key Management Ideas, Financial Times Pitman, 1998
Which Executive Programme?, Economist Intelligence Unit, 1998
Gravy Training: Inside the Business of Business School, Jossey Bass, 1999
The 75 Greatest Management Decisions, Amacom, 1999
The Ultimate Book of Business Brands, Capstone, 1999
The Freethinker’s A-Z of the New World of Business, Capstone, 1999
MBA Planet (with Des Dearlove), Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2000
The Financial Times Handbook of Management (ed. second edition), FT Pitman, 2000
Generation Entrepreneur (with Des Dearlove), Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2000
The Management Century, Jossey Bass, 2000
Business Minds (with Tom Brown, Des Dearlove and Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues), FT Prentice Hall, 2001
Firestarters! (with Des Dearlove), Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2001
Leadership the Sven-Goran Eriksson Way (with Julian Birkinshaw), Capstone, 2002
The Career Adventurer’s Fieldbook (with Steve Coomber and Des Dearlove), Capstone, 2002
Business, the Universe and Everything (with Des Dearlove), Capstone, 2003
The Financial Times Handbook of Management (ed. with Des Dearlove, third edition), Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2004
The Business World Atlas (with Des Dearlove), Meteor Press, 2006
Atlantic Crossing, St Giles Poets, 2015
Dear CEO (with Des Dearlove, editors), Bloomsbury, 2017
Ecosystems Inc. (editor), Thinkers50, 2020