Trained as an anthropologist (Ph.D. University of Chicago), Grant has studied American culture and commerce for 25 years.
He has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show and worked for many clients including Timberland, New York Historical Society, Diageo, IKEA, Sesame Street, Nike, Kanye West, Netflix, Google, The Ford Foundation and the Obama White House.
He started the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he did the first museum exhibit on youth cultures.
He has taught anthropology at the University of Cambridge, ethnography at MIT, and marketing at the Harvard Business School. He was an affiliate of the Department of Comparative Media at MIT and the Berkman Center at Harvard
He is a long time student of culture and commerce. He has explored this theme in two books: Culture and Consumption I, and Culture and Consumption II.
He has also looked at how Americans invent and reinvent themselves. He had explored this theme in two more books: Big Hair and Transformations: identity construction in a contemporary culture.
He is the student of American culture. Plenitude published in 1997 looked at the new explosive growth of contemporary culture. In Flock and Flow, he shows how contemporary culture and commerce change.
Two years ago, he published a book called Chief Culture Officer with Basic Books that argues that culture now creates so much opportunity and danger for the organization that need senior managers who focus on it full time. He is hoping this will create a new occupational destination for graduates in the arts and humanities.
More recently Grant has published Culturematic and Dark Value. Most recently, he has published The New Honor Code. Later in 2021, he will publish The Return of the Artisan.
