Ryan W. Buell

Ryan W. Buell is a Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches Managing Service Operations in the MBA elective curriculum, is a section chair in the MBA required curriculum, and teaches in numerous focused and custom Executive Education programs at the School. He is the faculty chair of the Transforming Customer Experiences Executive Education program, and has also taught the Technology and Operations Management course in the MBA required curriculum. Professor Buell was the recipient of the Charles M. Williams Award for outstanding teaching in 2016.

Professor Buell’s research investigates the interactions between service businesses and their customers, and how operational choices affect customer behaviors and firm performance. He is affiliated with the Behavioral Insights Group at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. His work has been published in Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Service Management, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Marketing Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Harvard Business Review. It has also received media attention from outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Wired, and The Huffington Post. Professor Buell was the recipient of the Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Accomplishments Award in 2019.

Professor Buell earned a DBA in Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School, where he received the Dean’s Award and the Wyss Doctoral Research Award. He also received an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a George F. Baker Scholar, and a BBA with high distinction from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Prior to his graduate studies, Professor Buell co-founded and managed the Tour Now Network, an online real estate virtual tour service. He has also worked at McKinsey & Company and General Motors.