Annabelle Gawer

Annabelle Gawer (born 1969) is a business theorist whose research concerns digital platforms.

Born in France, and educated in France and the US, she works in the UK as Chaired Professor in Digital Economy and director of the Surrey Centre of Digital Economy at the University of Surrey.

Gawer was born in France, in 1969.

In 1992, she earned a master's degree in applied mathematics from Pierre and Marie Curie University, in Paris, an engineering degree from the Paris School of Mines, and a master's degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University in the US.

She completed a Ph.D. in management of technology and innovation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000.

She returned to France as an assistant professor of strategy and management at INSEAD in Fontainebleau from 2000 to 2004.

Gawer is a coauthor of Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation - Do You Have Platform Leadership? (with Michael A. Cusumano, Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

Her edited volumes include:

Gawer was elected to the British Academy in 2023.

From 2004 to 2016 she was an assistant professor and associate professor of strategy and innovation in the business school of the Imperial College London.

She joined the University of Surrey in 2016.

She headed the Department of Digital Economy, Entrepreneurship & Innovation in the Surrey Business School at the University of Surrey from 2018 to 2021.

Since 2020, she has also held an affiliation as visiting professor of Strategy and Innovation in the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.