---
id: "entity-rita-mcgrath"
type: "entity"
entityType: "person"
canonicalName: "Rita McGrath"
aliases: []
source_timestamps: ["§ Strategy Amid Radical Uncertainty"]
tags: ["author", "academic", "strategy"]
related: ["concept-strategic-centering", "concept-the-stuff-economy", "framework-strategic-centers", "quote-strategic-center-importance"]
sources: ["tail1"]
isSpeakerEntity: true
---
## Segment 1 — tail1

## Article 106 — a106

# Rita McGrath

**Profile.** Rita McGrath is a professor at **Columbia Business School** and a leading strategy scholar known for work on *transient advantage*, *strategic inflection*, and strategy under uncertainty.

**Role in this source.** She is the cited authority for the strategy strand of the roundup — the originator of the argument that the **'stuff' economy is ending** and that leaders must respond by choosing a strategic center.

**Attributed contributions in this vault:**
- [[concept-strategic-centering]] — the organizing-principle concept she introduces.
- [[concept-the-stuff-economy]] — the term she coined for the era of physical, defensible assets.
- [[framework-strategic-centers]] — her five center types (mission, customer, technology, national ecosystem, friction erasure).
- [[quote-strategic-center-importance]] — *"Choosing a center is the most important strategic decision a leader can make today."*

> **Enrichment note:** McGrath's broader body of work on transient advantage supplies the theoretical frame for the strategic-centering argument and the critique of relying on stable industry anchors.