Senior Faculty Fellow

Richard Foster is the managing partner of the Millbrook Management Group, LLC. Prior to forming Millbrook, Mr. Foster was with McKinsey & Company for 30 years. While at McKinsey, he served as a senior partner and director for 22 years and retired from the company in 2004.

Mr. Foster co-founded the firm’s high technology practice in the late ‘70s, the chemicals practice in the early ‘80s, the healthcare practice in the late ‘80s, and the private equity practice in the '90s. He also led McKinsey’s worldwide knowledge development from 1995 to 1998. He served over fifty leading global companies primarily in healthcare, electronics, and chemicals as well as a number of nonprofit institutions.

Mr. Foster’s research interests are in the relationships between capital formation, innovation, and regulation. Mr. Foster has written two best selling business books: Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage (1986) and Creative Destruction (2001), that focus specifically on the relationships between technological change, innovation and capital formation, and destruction. In 1999 – 2000, he led the Study Group for the Council on Foreign Relations on Innovation and Economic Power which led to the publication of, Technological Innovation and Economic Performance (Steil, Victor, and Nelson, editors, Princeton University Press, 2001).

Mr. Foster was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the President’s Circle of the National Academies. He is a member of the Policy and Global Affairs Committee of the National Research Council, National Academies. Mr. Foster is also member of the board of directors of: athenahealth (chairman of the Governance Committee); Trust Company of the West, a wholly owned subsidiary of Société Général (Audit Committee); Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (Member of the Executive and Finance); Yale School of Medicine Dean’s Advisory Board; W. M. Keck Foundation (Executive Committee); Council of Foreign Relations (Nominating and Membership Committees); Council for Aid to Education (chairman, Strategy Committee); and a member of the Chambers Street Executive Network of Goldman Sachs. Mr. Foster was director of the Santa Fe Institute from 1996 until 2004.

Mr. Foster received his BS, MS, and PhD from Yale University in Engineering and Applied Science.