Stafford Beer

British theorist of management cybernetics, and originator of the Viable System Model. He came to the field through operations research in the steel industry, and worked subsequently as a consultant. Between 1971 and 1973 he was chief designer of Project Cybersyn for the Chilean government.

His stated design principle was to increase the autonomy of lower levels of an organisation. Commentators have noted a tension between that principle and the centralised presentation of the systems he built, a tension examined in the Cybersyn case record.

His profession is recorded as other, since the controlled vocabulary has no value for operations research, matching the value used in that case record.

Author of Brain of the Firm.