Jacques Horovitz is Professor Emeritus of Service Strategy, Service Marketing and Service Management at IMD, the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, and founder and CEO of "Châteauform'-the home of seminars".

In his lectures and publications, he focuses on how to compete through service, customer centricity and improve customer satisfaction with heavy emphasis on service as a strategy for differentiation, on customer loyalty and on creating a service culture.

Professor Horovitz has practiced service marketing and management as Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales for Club Med North America, Valtur in Italy, Managing Director - Marketing and International for the GrandVision group, a listed retail speciality store chain with 800 international stores in 15 countries in Europe; coach to the Executive Committee of Disneyland Paris, during its turnaround, as well as head of quality and training.

Jacques Horovitz has advised CEOs of over 100 companies throughout Europe on service, having founded, developed and managed a pan-European consulting company with offices in seven countries and 50 consultants. His assignments have been in a wide variety of sectors including leisure, tourism, transportation, financial services, industrial equipment, office automation, retailing, pharmaceuticals, automobile, hospitality, telecom. He has extensively researched service strategies and service quality, relationship marketing and customer centricity.

He founded Châteauform' in 1996, after realizing that the existing offer for meetings, seminars, conferences and business events was not adapted to customer needs. His company has enjoyed double digit annual growth ever since its inception and manages thirty two venues in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium and recently Germany.

He has published 15 books among which, Quality of Service, published by InterEditions in 1987, became a worldwide success translated into 20 languages. His book on Service Strategy, 1st and 2nd edition, by Financial Times-Prentice Hall in 2004, has been translated into Russian, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Polish, Czech and German and transformed into corporate video with actors. His latest book, A Dream with a Deadline – turning strategy into action, published by Financial Times – Prentice Hall in 2007 has also been very popular, already translated abroad.

Professor Jacques Horovitz graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP), France, and has a M Phil and a PhD from the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New-York, USA. His academic awards include a Samuel Bronfman fellowship and the prize for the best research in general management from the American Academy of Management.