About Me
To understand whether CANBACK think is worth exploring, here is my credibility.
Biography
Dr. Staffan Canback is the Executive Chairman of Tellusant, Inc. and a co-founder of the company.
Throughout my career, I have developed and refined an unusually broad and deep analytical capability. It enables me to see connections, develop frameworks, and solve problems that often elude conventional approaches.
Today, I reserve that capability for leaders who are intellectually curious, willing to challenge accepted wisdom, and committed to making better decisions through rigorous reasoning and evidence.
Over four decades, I have worked as a management consultant and business leader around the world. My career started with McKinsey & Company in Scandinavia where I was a partner. I then joined Monitor Company in Boston, continuing my management consulting career as a partner.
In 2004, I decided to form a new type of consulting firm, Canback Consulting, which was more deeply focused on the quantitative aspects of strategy development. In 2015 I sold the firm to The Economist Group and stayed on as managing director. The Canback years were critical in forming my thoughts about Tellusant, so my personal history with the firm is relevant to my credibility today.
In 2020, I co-founded Tellusant together with Philip Burgin-Young, to take the next step: To move from pure advice to building repeatable, automated products that capture much of what companies and management consultants do manually within strategic planning and other corporate higher order cognitive processes. The approach is to leverage AI for strategy purposes.
I have worked on the ground in more than eighty countries ranging from Mongolia, to Eritrea, to Nicaragua, to the OECD countries. I am enthusiastic about opportunities in emerging countries. Over the years, I have lived in Sweden, the United States, India, Mexico, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.
I love quantitative analysis and will perform statistical analyses on flights instead of watching movies. βThe world can be expressed in equations. The rest is fluff.β
I also enjoy building businesses. From founding McKinsey Gothenburg and Monitor Scandinavia, to establishing and leading Canback Consulting, to co-founding Tellusant.
Privately, I am a family man, married to Charlotte, and with three adult children. I enjos travel, music & the arts, and intellectual pursuits.
I earned a Civ.Ing. and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, where I graduated at the top of my class; a Master in Business Administration from Harvard Business School; and a Doctor of Business Administration from Henley Business School.
I am a Fulbright Scholar; a Wallenberg Scholar; and the first prize winner of the best European doctoral dissertation in management awarded in 2003 awarded by the European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management & Business Administration (EDAMBA).
I have more than 750 academic, business, and media citations to my name.
My last name is CanbΓ€ck in Swedish.
Professional Record
Experience
Tellusant, Boston (2020-)
Executive Chairman & Co-Founder
Canback Consulting, Boston (2004-2020)
Managing Director & Founder
Monitor Group, Boston (1995-2003)
Partner
McKinsey & Company, Scandinavia (1984-1995)
Partner
Mateba y Roberts, Mexico City (1983) Consultant
Asea (ABB), Systems Development Engineer, VΓ€sterΓ₯s (1980-1981)
Swedish Army, NCO, Uppsala (1977-1978)
Lived in
- United States
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Mexico
- United Kingdom
- India
Significant Clients
Not including confidential Tellusant clients.
| Β | Β |
|---|---|
| ABB | Mastercard |
| AB InBev | Mediclinic |
| AT&T | Mondelez |
| Colgate-Palmolive | Maersk |
| Diageo | PepsiCo |
| Distell | Pfizer |
| Efes | Pohjola |
| Electrolux | Procter & Gamble |
| Ericsson | Saab |
| Essity | Scandinavian Airlines |
| FEMSA | SEB |
| Fiskars | Skandia |
| Gloria | Suntory |
| Grupo Lala | Swedbank |
| Hasselblad | Telia |
| HSBC | T-Mobile |
| Imperial Brands | USPS |
| Kraft Heinz | Volvo |
| Β | Walmart |
Education
- Doctor of Business Administration - Henley Business School
- Master in Business Administration - Harvard Business School
- Master of Science in Electrical Engineering - KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Academic Publishing
12 contributions listed on SSRN and 49 contributions listed on Figshare.
Notable:
Bureaucratic Limits of Firm Size. Seminal work cited hundreds of times. Doctoral resarch on diseconomies of scale in large enterprises.
The Logic of Management Consulting Part 1 and Part 2. Most used course material at universities globally for consulting courses.
Where in The World Is the Market? Demonstrates how to analyze global markets based on distributional economics.
Citations
More than 750 citations spanning academia, commerce, media, government, nonprofit.
Grants & Awards
- Fulbright Scholar (1981)
- Wallenberg Scholar (1995)
- EDAMBA: First Prize in best European doctoral dissertation in management, 2003
Volunteer Work
- Member of the Board of Advisors: The Fletcher School at Tufts University.The Digital Planet initiative, funded by the Gates Foundation.
- Class Secretary: Harvard Business School. MBA Class of 1983 Section I.
- Reunion Volunteer: Harvard Business School. MABA Class of 1983.