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Creative Class Thinker Joins Rotman School of Management

Toronto, July 16, 2007 -- A noted researcher, whose discovery of the “creative class” has been lauded by the Harvard Business Review as a major breakthrough idea, has joined the faculty of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Richard Florida will be a professor of business economics and the Academic Director of the newly established Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School.

Prof. Florida is well known for his work on economic competitiveness, demographic trends, and cultural and technological innovation. In the last five years, he has penned the international bestseller, The Rise of the Creative Class and also The Flight of the Creative Class, which launched an intellectual revolution that has changed the way companies, nations, and communities compete and thrive.

The Martin Prosperity Institute, a $120 million project, was made possible by a cornerstone $50 million grant to the Rotman School by the Province of Ontario. The Institute will take an integrative approach to the study and creation of jurisdictional advantage. Currently, the study of how jurisdictions, including provinces, become magnets for companies to start-up, locate and grow, and for talent to study, live and work, has been fragmented across many diverse fields. Over the past decade, the Rotman School has assembled the largest academic research group in Canada dedicated to the study of jurisdictional advantage and prosperity.

In addition to his academic role at the Rotman School, Prof. Florida is the founder of the Creative Class Group, a global think tank, which is based in Washington, DC. Previously he was the Hirst Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and a former senior scientist with the Gallup Organization. He taught for nearly two decades at Carnegie Mellon University and has been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He earned his bachelor’s from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University

The University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management has set out to become one of the world's top tier business schools. Located in North America's 3rd largest financial centre, the Rotman School is taking an innovative approach to management education, built around Integrative Thinking™ and Business Design™. For more information and to find out why the Financial Times and BusinessWeek rank Rotman among the leading business schools internationally, visit http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca. Integrative Thinking and Business Design are registered trademarks of the Rotman School of Management.