BIO

I am a Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship scholar. I have focused my research on understanding how to organize large-scale knowledge and innovation platforms. Much of my current research involves the building or optimization of large-scale innovation and knowledge creation efforts around platforms and digital infrastructure. I also analyze large data sets collected from operational data on platforms to derive fundamental and general lessons. 

I have taught courses in tech and science-based strategy, organization, entrepreneurship, econometrics and data analysis, field experiments, economics of digitization, microeconomics, and platform business models. I have taught students and executives in business, economics, engineering, data science, computer science, and humanities at undergraduate, masters and PhD levels on four continents. My current teaching focuses on emerging forms of organization and business models in this 21st Century--featuring platforms, humans working with intelligent machines, data science and algorithms, automation, and so forth.  My education is in Engineering at Waterloo, Economics at Toronto, and Behavioral and Policy Sciences at MIT-Sloan.

Prior to pursuing research in social science, strategy, economics and organization, I worked in engineering research and then as an executive in platform and information industries. For example, I built and led The Economist Group's Western European consulting and advisory practice in Telecommunication, Information Technology, and Media. I led multi-disciplinary M&A teams with teams collaborating across multiple firms, for Qualcomm in multiple countries in Latin America. My first professional job was working as an engineer on the Canadarm for the International Space Station.  I have advised and started a handful of companies close to my research interests. I learned the most of all during high school from performing manual labor and performing gigs, and from a guidance counselor who told me higher education could be productive.

Dr. Boudreau is an associate professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship DMSB, and also affiliated with the College of Computer & Information Sciences, the College of Social Sciences & Humanities at Northeastern University, and the Wireless Internet of Things Research Center at the Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Productivity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and of Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. 

In his research, Dr. Boudreau uses a combination of field experiments in "live" platforms and large-scale econometric analysis to better understand how best to design and manage large-scale digital platforms for growth and innovation. His research has appeared in academic journals such as Management Science, Science, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Research Policy, Nature Biotechnology, the RAND Journal of Economics, the Harvard Business Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, and others. His research have been recognized and awarded by INFORMS Technology, Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, Management Science, HBR McKinsey, and Copeland Awards. His research has been generously funded by Google, Microsoft, the Paris Chamber of Commerce, the Kauffman Foundation, G.E., National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Management Lab. He contributes to Management Science and Strategic Management Journal on editorial boards.

He has taught courses in advanced business strategy and dynamics, business model design, and optimally designing and scaling platform & data-driven business models, tech and science-led entrepreneurship, microeconomics, empirical & experimental methods. He has taught undergraduate, MBA, executive, and Ph.D. levels in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, ranging from students of Business, Economics, engineering, Sciences, Data Science, Computer Science, and Design and Media .

Before pursuing academic research, Professor Boudreau held several technology and management leadership positions, including leading multi-disciplinary M&A teams for Qualcomm in Latin America;  building and directing The Economist Group's Western European Telecoms & Internet advisory practice; and strategy consulting at Braxton Associates and Deloitte Consulting. He also designed and ran engineering experiments on heat transfer properties of microelectronics, built statistical production tools at a silicon fab at Bell Northern Research and Nortel Networks, and worked on the robot arm on the International Space Station, as part of the Canadian Space Agency. He has founded and advised startups related to data science and machine learning, wireless communications, and crowdsourcing and innovation platforms. He holds degrees in Engineering and Economics, and a Ph.D. in Behavioral and Policy Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.