The Yankee Group founder has joined Tec de Monterrey’s EGADE Business School as a distinguished visiting professor.
He never wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer. Howard Anderson’s father ran a small business, and as young Howard wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, his biggest professional dream was to become an entrepreneur and be his own boss.
Anderson, who founded The Yankee Group, a technology analysis company listed in the Inc. 500, a ranking of the most successful American companies, lists his motivations as being challenging the status quo, making changes in the world, and helping others create something.
“I’ve always been fascinated by business. The best part of entrepreneurship is dealing with the constant challenges. There is no other situation where an individual uses their talents so intensely,” said Anderson.
The challenges not only led his business to be listed as one of the most successful businesses in the United States, but since selling his company in 1996, he has dedicated himself to teaching and sharing his ideas at universities such as Harvard, Brown, and MIT.
Today, he is joining the Tec de Monterrey Faculty of Excellence initiative that aims to bring together 100 international professors to broaden its students’ learning experience, becoming a distinguished visiting professor in entrepreneurship at EGADE Business School.
A one-night study and the New York Times
It was 1971. Howard Anderson was traveling down an American highway in a Volkswagen he had bought for 890 dollars, when he heard on the radio that the company AT&T was being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice.
It was the opportunity he had been waiting for.
In 1970, one year earlier, Anderson had founded The Yankee Group, a company specialized in technology industry analysis.
Howard knew that what he had just heard on the radio must, without a doubt, be analyzed.
“The following morning, I called the New York Times and told them that I’d just finished a study on the impact of the Department of Justice lawsuit on AT&T.
“It wasn’t entirely true, although I had thought about it the night before,” laughed Anderson, adding that days later the New York Times published a four-page article quoting a young Howard Anderson from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“It doesn’t matter how young you are when you start, as long as what you’re doing makes sense,” he added.
“Entrepreneurs are attackers, and they aim for more. They want challenges and better solutions.”
After writing the report, selling it for 1,500 dollars, and being invited to several conferences, he found himself on a podium talking about the telephone industry with the president of AT&T in the audience.
“Suddenly, I noticed that the AT&T president was taking notes of what I was saying. I asked him why and he replied, ‘This is as good as what my people are doing.’
“The world was changing and that was the beginning of our growth,” said Anderson.
In 1996, Anderson sold The Yankee Group after a successful career in which it was listed in the Inc. 500, a ranking of the most successful companies in the United States.
“Thinking back, my challenges were small. I had an incredible company, I started with no outside capital, and the best investment I’ve ever made was 2 dollars for a marriage license.
“I’ve been married 52 years, so it’s 4 cents per year,” he says with a smile on his face. “My wife and children make me proud.”
The path to entrepreneurship
Howard Anderson points out that he chose to start a company in the area of technology for the chance it offers to influence power and change the status quo.
“The best way to change the status quo is to make better products or better services and that changes the equation,” he said.
Anderson points out that the business world is divided between attackers and defenders, and it is the latter that dominates the market, such as Coca-Cola.
“Defenders have brands, clients, and banking relationships but attackers sometimes have better ideas. If they succeed in executing them, they eventually become defenders themselves.
“Entrepreneurs are attackers, and they aim for more. They want challenges and better solutions,” he said.
The development of new models, improvements for the world, and solutions to local and global problems is something that Anderson values in business and which motivates him to share his teachings.
Students are his legacy
A decade after selling his company, Anderson began a new stage, that of teaching.
The United States, Russia, Israel, Scotland, and Mexico are places where he has shared some of his experiences, challenges, stories, and advice.
“I’ve also learned while teaching internationally. The students listen to my funny stories, and I get to know them. It’s a mutual and symbiotic association,” he added.
Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brown University, and the Dartmouth Business School are some of the institutions where he has been invited to share his knowledge.
“My students, like my children, are my legacy. Some of my students have started companies worth over a billion, which means they’ve thousands of employees.
“That’s my legacy. Having helped them get started, giving them sometimes good advice and sometimes bad. That’s probably the best use of my talents. Having helped start those companies.”
Joining the Faculty of Excellence
Anderson is part of the Faculty of Excellence initiative that aims to bring together 100 internationally distinguished professors to join Tec de Monterrey.
Howard Anderson is a distinguished visiting professor in entrepreneurship for the EGADE Business School, which offers graduate programs.
Currently, 15 international professors have joined this initiative at the six Tec de Monterrey schools: Business; Art, Architecture and Design; Engineering and Sciences; Education and Humanities; Social Sciences and Government and Medicine and Health Sciences.
“One of the reasons I’m at the Tec is because it has brilliant students. That’s what professors really want.
“It doesn’t matter the size of the office, a nice lobby, or whether or not there is parking. Give me brilliant students and I’m a happy person,” concluded Howard.
“It doesn’t matter how young you are when you start, as long as what you’re doing makes sense.”
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