Sam Savage

Consulting Professor, Stanford University

After receiving his Ph.D. in the field of computer science from Yale University in 1973, Sam Savage spent a year at General Motors Research Laboratory, and then joined the Management Science faculty of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Here he discovered that an "algebraic curtain" separated the bulk of his management students from management science. In 1985 Savage led the development of a software package called What’sBest!® that coupled linear programming to Lotus 1-2-3. The package won PC Magazine’s Technical Excellence Award in 1986. Savage has worked ever since to bring analytical tools to managers in an algebra-free environment. In 1990, he moved to Stanford, where he teaches Management Science in the Engineering School. He has been a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, and was recently appointed Senior Associate of the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.

Recent publications include articles on "The Flaw of Averages" in the San Jose Mercury News and Harvard Business Review, and Accounting for Uncertainty, in the Journal of Portfolio Management. Savage consults and lectures extensively to business and government agencies and has served as an expert witness. Harry Markowitz, Nobel laureate in economics, has called Savage’s book and software, Decision Making with Insight, “a Must Read.”

In 2006, Savage founded ProbabilityManagement.org with colleagues Stefan Scholtes of Cambridge and Daniel Zweidler of Shell, to promote a unified approach to enterprisewide risk modeling.

Savage is also founder and president of AnalyCorp, a firm that develops executive education programs and software for improving business analysis.