Biography

Jonathan L.S. Byrnes is Senior Lecturer at MIT, where he has taught at the graduate level and in executive programs for nearly twenty years. He is an acknowledged authority on profitability management. The courses he has taught cover all strategic and operational aspects of customer-supplier relationships.

He has authored over one hundred books, articles, cases, notes, and expert submissions. He wrote a monthly column on managing profitability, called “The Bottom Line,” in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge e-newsletter (hbswk.hbs.edu) for four years. Dr. Byrnes has supervised thesis work in ABB, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Cardinal Healthcare, Cisco, Dell, Flextronics, Honeywell, iRobot, Lahey Clinic, Nebraska Medical Center, Northrop Grumman, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Raytheon, SanDisk, and United Technologies.

Dr. Byrnes earned a DBA from Harvard University in 1980. He served as President of the Harvard Alumni Association, and for five years on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association. He also served for two years on Harvard’s Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.

He is President of Jonathan Byrnes & Co., a focused consulting company that he founded in 1976. He has advised over fifty major companies, medical institutions, and industry associations.

Dr. Byrnes serves on the Board of Directors of MSC Industrial Direct, Inc. (a New York Stock Exchange company). He has served on the Advisory Boards of Objectiva Software and Autopart International, two companies that were acquired at a substantial gain, and he currently serves on the Advisory Boards of RMG Networks, OCO, and WaveMark, all development-stage companies.