Thomas C. Lawton, outdoor portrait in a navy suit, standing at a railing with buildings behind.
Thomas C. Lawton

Professor of Strategy and International Business · PhD FRSA FCMI

Strategy when the rules are rewritten.

How business leaders make strategic decisions when politics reconfigures the rules of competition. For retained advisory work, contact Rockbarra.

Speaking Books Advisory
Thomas C. Lawton, chest-up portrait in a navy suit, white shirt, and striped tie, photographed in a light corridor.

I serve as Editor-in-Chief of Long Range Planning, the world’s oldest journal in strategic management. I am the author or editor of nine books, coauthor of more than sixty research papers, and founder and CEO of Rockbarra. I am an Associate at the Møller Institute, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and I hold professorships in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

I have spent over thirty years working with existing and emerging leaders in global companies, family enterprises, family offices and investors, state agencies, and business-school cohorts. I research and write about the problems I work on with executives.

When a leadership team faces competitive uncertainty or host-country complexity, the practice is Rockbarra.

Books

Nine books.

Nine books as author or editor, from 1997 to the Cambridge Handbook due in 2027.

Cover of the Cambridge Handbook of Nonmarket Strategy in a Global Context, navy jacket. Cambridge Handbook of Nonmarket Strategy in a Global Context Cambridge University Press · forthcoming January 2027 Cover of Aligning for Advantage, Oxford University Press, red cube on white. Aligning for Advantage Oxford University Press · 2014 Cover of Breakout Strategy, McGraw-Hill, exploding light bulb. Breakout Strategy McGraw-Hill · 2007
All books
Thomas C. Lawton standing beside the Long Range Planning Elsevier banner.

LRPLong Range Planning

Since 2022

Editor-in-Chief

Long Range Planning is the world’s oldest journal in strategic management. I serve as Editor-in-Chief.

The journal

Articles

Selected papers.

Speaking

Keynotes and boardrooms.

Keynotes, board briefings, and multi-day executive programmes on geopolitics, nonmarket strategy, and how leadership teams reassess when the rules are rewritten. Audiences include companies, schools, family offices, and investors. The test is what the room does afterwards.

Speaking

Practice

Rockbarra.

Rockbarra is the advisory practice. I am founder and CEO. Retained work for companies, family offices, and investors — and school partnerships — runs through that practice.

Rockbarra Advisory

Contact

Write to info@rockbarra.com.