Howard H. Stevenson

Howard H. Stevenson (June 27, 1941) is the Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor Emeritus at Harvard University.[1] Forbes magazine described him as Harvard Business School's "lion of entrepreneurship" in a 2011 article.[2] Howard is credited with defining entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources you currently control.”[2] INC Magazine described Howard's definition of entrepreneurship as "the best answer ever."[3]

Howard Stevenson (circa 2012)

Stevenson is the author of eight books and 41 articles.[4] His past roles at Harvard include chairman of Harvard Business Publishing, vice provost for resources and planning, and senior associate dean at HBS.[5] He is often credited as being the most successful fundraiser in the history of Harvard University, raising over $600 million in philanthropic support for initiatives in business, science, healthcare, and student life.[4]

Stevenson is the co-founder and founding president of Baupost, a leading money management firm currently led by Seth Klarman. When he retired from active teaching at HBS, the University named an academic chair in his honor.

He graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Business School.[6]

Howard's Gift
The English edition of Howard's Gift by Eric Sinoway

Stevenson is the subject of a book written by his friend and former student, Eric Sinoway, an American author[7], entrepreneur[8], and executive,[9] titled Howard’s Gift: Uncommon Wisdom to Inspire Your Life’s Work, which was released by St. Martin's Press on October 2, 2012.[10]

The Korean edition of Howard's Gift by Eric Sinoway
The Chinese edition of Howard's Gift by Eric Sinoway
The (Traditional) Chinese edition of Howard's Gift by Eric Sinoway
The Japanese edition of Howard's Gift by Eric Sinoway

The English edition of Howard's Gift was released in hardcopy, paperback, and audio. The book has been translated into Korean, Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese.

Inspiration for Howard's Gift
Howard Stevenson & Eric Sinoway on the Harvard Business School campus (circa 2012)

Howard's Gift was written by Eric Sinoway after Howard Stevenson, his mentor, professor, and close friend at Harvard University, survived what by all measures should have been a fatal heart attack.

Stevenson and Sinoway developed what has been described as a "father-son" relationship while Sinoway, a mid-career student at Harvard at the time, undertook an independent study with Stevenson, who was then Harvard's Vice Provost for University Planning. Following completion of their student-faculty collaboration, Sinoway joined the Harvard development office and the relationship between the two deepened further.

In 2014, after three doctors declared him healthy, Stevenson experienced unattended cardiac arrest on January 5th in the middle of the Harvard campus. With a survival rate of approximately 1%, unattended cardiac arrest is almost always fatal. In Stevenson's case, it almost certainly would have been were it not for a remarkable set of events.

  • Stevenson collapsed outside of one of the only buildings on the Harvard campus at the time that had a mobile defibrillator.
  • When a colleague saw him collapse, she ran inside to grab the defibrillator.
  • While she did, a second colleague, ran across campus to Howard's side and began performing CPR.
  • The colleague who retrieved the mobile defibrillator brought it to his side and administered it.
  • The individual performing CPR went to his office. On his desk in his office was his mail, which he opened. That day in his mail was his certification of his CPR training from the week before.
  • An ambulance came to the Harvard Business School campus to retrieve Howard. It was one of two ambulances in the entire city of Boston that had a special clot busting drug onboard called TPA; TPA is not typically administered in ambulances but bedside in hospitals. The ambulance that arrived at Howard's side happened to have it onboard.
  • The technician on the ambulance that arrived at Harvard Business School had advanced training to give a needle injection directly into the heart, as he did to Howard who lay unconsciously on the HBS campus.
  • The technicians worked on Howard for approximately 40 minutes to stabilize him, put him in an ambulance, and rushed him to Mt. Auburn Hospital, where the head of the cardiac unit was on duty.
  • The Mt. Auburn Hospital medical staff induced a 31/2 day coma. Doctors estimate that he went without oxygen for almost 4 minutes after his heart initially stopped.
  • When Howard was brought out of the coma, given the lack of oxygen to the brain and the trauma of the event, the President of the hospital remarked that it seemed like a virtual impossibility that there had been no cognitive damage -- which there was not.

Following Stevenson's release from the hospital and prolonged recovery at home, Sinoway spent hours a week with him discussing a wide range of topics focused on achieving success and satisfaction in life. It was these discussions that set the foundation for Howard's Gift.




Archives and records

References
  1. www.w3.org
  2. Harvards Lion of Entrepreneurship Packs Up His Office
  3. The Best Definition Of Entrepreneurship
  4. "www.news.harvard.edu". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-06-04.
  5. drfd.hbs.edu
  6. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=5450992&privcapId=19699&previousCapId=763301&previousTitle=Harvard%20Business%20Publishing%20Corporation
  7. "Howard's Gift | Eric Sinoway | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  8. "Eric Sinoway : Axcess Worldwide". axcessworldwide.com. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  9. "The Worth Group Unveils First Health and Wellness Summit". PRWeb. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  10. www.amazon.com
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