Keyvan Vakili

Keyvan Vakili is Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Academic Director of the Data Science and AI Initiative at London Business School. Keyvan’s research spans three related areas. The first examines creativity and innovation, focusing on how collaboration, team design, specialisation, incentives, and knowledge recombination influence the novelty and impact of creative work. The second focuses on digital platforms, studying how platform governance choices shape ecosystem growth, participant behaviour, and the trade-offs between short-term optimisation and long-term value creation. The third explores the intersection of AI and organisations, including how firms adopt and govern artificial intelligence, how generative AI affects work and strategic decision-making, and how organisations can build capabilities to use emerging technologies responsibly and effectively.

His research has been published in leading strategy and management journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, and Academy of Management Journal. 

At London Business School, Keyvan teaches MBAs, Executive MBA, and executive education audiences on artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and competitive strategy. Much of his current executive teaching focuses on helping senior leaders understand how AI and platform-based business models reshape competition, organisation design, and value creation. As part of the Data Science and AI Initiative, he also leads AI application development at LBS, helping translate advances in AI and data science into practical tools, initiatives, and organisational capabilities across the school.

Beyond his academic work, Keyvan advises and consults with companies on AI adoption, digital strategy, and platform-based innovation. He works with organisations on how to identify valuable AI use cases, design adoption strategies, build internal capabilities, and manage the organisational implications of deploying AI at scale. Before joining academia, he was an entrepreneur, software developer, and consultant. 

Keyvan holds a PhD in Strategic Management from the University of Toronto and BA and MBA degrees from Sharif University of Technology.