My Experience

“In addition to very strong academics, Dr. Fern offers hands-on experience gained through…consulting in strategy. I highly recommend Dr. Fern as an advisor in business strategy as he can bring a lot of value to his clients.”
- Sanja Pesich, Global Women’s Leadership Network, Santa Clara University

Michael J. Fern, PhD is a strategist and technologist. He has advised and taught executives, managers, and professionals from many of the world’s highest performing computing and media companies, including Agilent, Apple, Applied Materials, Cisco, eBay, Fairchild Semiconductor, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Intel, Juniper Networks, Lockheed Martin, McAfee, NVIDIA, Oracle, Qualcomm, Salesforce.com, Sandisk, SAP, Seagate, Sprint, Sybase, Symantec, TSMC, VMWare, Yahoo, and Xilinx.

His work on strategy, innovation, and technology has been published in leading management journals, and he has presented his work at a number of U.S. and international conferences. He has received Fellowships from Booz Allen Hamilton, the Strategic Management Society, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for entrepreneurship. His technology work has been funded through substantial government and university grants.

He has hands-on technical experience in software project management, with the commercialization of a cloud-based learning management system, known as Utilium (utilium.com). He is an active contributor to Y Combinator’s Hacker News, a social news website for software programmers and entrepreneurs. His technical experience extends back to the 1980s, when he developed and managed a bulletin board system (BBS) using the WWIV platform.

He is an experienced executive teacher and graduate-level instructor, recently serving as a professor of strategy in the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. As a professor, he taught the capstone course, “Strategy in High-Technology Firms,” in the evening MBA program. While at the University, he received a Presidential Grant for research on the topic of customer value creation in high-technology firms.

He received a PhD in strategic management from the Kenan-Flagler Business School (KFBS) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. KFBS is consistently ranked among the top 20 business schools in the United States by BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He earned a Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude, from the University of Oregon.

He is a licensed private pilot, an avid runner, and enjoys backpacking and camping in the spring and summer months.

Published Articles:

Speaking Engagements and Conference Presentations:

  • Conference on the Origins of Organizational Routines and Capabilities, (Rotterdam 2009, Helsinki 2010)
  • Google Inc. (Mountain View, 2009) – Strategic positioning of search advertising in mobile devices
  • Academy of Management Conference (Chicago, 2009)
  • Strategic Management Society Conference (San Diego, 2007)
  • Wharton Technology Conference (Philadelphia, 2006)
  • Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference (Atlanta, 2006)
  • Academy of Management Conference (Atlanta, 2006)
  • Strategic Management Society Conference (Orlando, 2005)
  • Academy of Management Conference (Honolulu, 2005)
  • Strategic Management Society Conference (San Juan, 2004)
  • Academy of Management Conference (New Orleans, 2004)
  • Consortium on Competitiveness and Cooperation (Atlanta, 2004)
  • Strategic Management Society Conference (Baltimore, 2003)
  • Academy of Management Conference (Seattle, 2003)
  • Strategic Management Conference (Paris, 2002)
  • Academy of Management Conference (Denver, 2002)
  • Strategic Management Society Conference (San Francisco, 2002)