Company Founder Hermann Simon Has Been Inducted Into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame

At an official ceremony on September 20 in Shanghai, Professor Hermann Simon was inducted into the Thinkers50* Hall of Fame, which honors the most important management thinkers in the world. Founder of the global strategy and marketing consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners and originator of the term “hidden champions,” Simon is the first German national to be recognized in this way. He joins the likes of management gurus Michael Porter and Tom Peters, as well as the late Peter Drucker. Inductees to the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame are distinguished individuals who have made a lasting impact in the field of business strategy.

Simon earned international recognition for two major accomplishments: Building on his academic research on price management, he started Simon-Kucher & Partners in 1985 and developed it into the world-market leader in pricing. Today, the company has over 1,400 employees in 39 offices worldwide.

Moreover, Simon gained international fame with the concept of “hidden champions,” a term he coined and defined. Hidden champions are medium-sized companies that, despite being largely unknown to the general public, are world leaders in their fields. These companies, the majority of which are based in Germany, are admired for the unique approach they take to strategic and managerial topics. Simon has authored more than 40 books, which have been published in 27 languages. His books on price management have become standard texts across the globe. The internationally renowned speaker grew up in a village in Germany’s Eifel region.

During his career as an academic, Simon was a professor of marketing at the universities of Bielefeld and Mainz and held various guest professorships at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, INSEAD, Keiō University, and London Business School. Simon describes his remarkable life journey in his autobiography Zwei Welten, ein Leben – Vom Eifelkind zum Global Player (“Two Worlds, One Life – From Eifel Child to Global Player”).

*Thinkers50 is a listing of the world’s most influential management thinkers, first published in 2001 by business journalists Des Dearlove and Stuart Craine. A new edition of the listing is released every two years. Periodically, certain individuals are selected from the Thinkers50 listing to permanently join the Hall of Fame.

Source: Simon-Kucher & Partners