Amar Bhidé is an influential innovation and entrepreneurship keynote speaker and author of “Uncertainty & Enterprise, Venturing Beyond the Known” listed on the Finanical Times “Best Summer Books 2025” by Martin Wolf. He is a Professor of Health Policy at Columbia University and previously Professor of Business at Tufts University.
Amar also served on the business school faculties of Harvard and Chicago universities. During his most recent Harvard appointment (as HBS Visiting Professor, 2020-21), he created and taught an elective course, ‘Lessons from Transformational Medical Advances.’ The course drew on his research on the nature and development of productive knowledge. He has researched and taught about innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance for over three decades.
He now focuses on teaching, developing, and disseminating case histories of transformational technological advances.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia – and a founding editor of Capitalism and Society, Bhide’s latest Uncertainty and Enterprise, Venturing beyond the Unknown was published in December 2024.
His earlier books include A Call for Judgment: Sensible Finance for a Dynamic Economy , The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses and Of Politics and Economic Reality
From the the early 1980s, he has written numerous articles for the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and The Financial Times. He has periodically appeared on Bloomberg TV and CNBC.
His professional experience includes directorship of a FTSE 100 company. In the 1980s, Bhidé was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, a Proprietary Trader at E.F. Hutton, and served on the Brady Commission staff, investigating the 1987 stock market crash.
Bhidé earned a DBA and MBA from Harvard Business School with High Distinction and a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay).
His ten Harvard Business Review articles include “The Judgment Deficit”, “Efficient Markets, Deficient Governance,” “How entrepreneurs craft strategies that work,” “Bootstrap Finance: the Art of Start-ups,” and “Hustle as Strategy”
Reviews for “Uncertainty & Enterprise, Venturing Beyond the Known”
“A compelling argument for recognizing uncertainty as a key factor in economic analyses, and how to build it into our strategies. This is a magisterial synthesis of forgotten theories, and a persuasive appeal for reform in the economics profession. It offers thought-provoking insights for anyone seeking to navigate our turbulent times.” – Gillian Tett, Provost, King’s College, University of Cambridge, and Columnist, Financial Times
‘Uncertainty and Enterprise’ Known Unknowns; Risk can be quantified, uncertainty cannot. But paying attention to one’s doubts in business can inspire imaginative thinking. Charles W. Calomiris – Wall Street Journal
