IMD is a leading global business school based in Lausanne, Switzerland. For over 60 years, IMD has worked with leading global companies to develop and retain management talent. IMD is the “global meeting place”: the most international of business schools worldwide. It offers learning based on innovative and highly relevant research that can be applied to business challenges immediately. This is IMD's "Real World. Real Learning" approach (www.imd.org).

IMD is ranked number one worldwide in executive education (Financial Times, 2008). IMD’s MBA is ranked first worldwide (Economist, 2008).

In 2005, Carlos Ghosn, President and CEO of Nissan and Renault, was the winner of the IAM Award. Other recent award winners include Michael Porter (Professor at Harvard Business School & Founder of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness), Kim Clark (former Dean of the Harvard Business School), and Wu Jinglian (the leading economist in China and researcher at the Chinese State Council Development and Research Centre).

One of IAM's objectives is to honour excellence in management through the election to Fellowship of individuals who have made an outstanding international contribution to the science and art of management. As IMD's President, Professor Lorange has supported and encouraged many movements in defence of good management practices: corporate alliances, defence of ethics and solidarity in international economic development.

Of Professor Lorange, Jan Oosterveld, IAM Chancellor said: "It is very unusual to find someone like Peter who excels so many fields. Not only is he an excellent business school President (just look at what he has achieved at IMD!), but he combines this with being a skilled entrepreneur, writer and academic."

Accepting his award, Peter Lorange, said that he was honoured to receive the distinction from an organization like IAM. "I gratefully accept the award, especially as IAM and IMD share a similar approach in that both emphasize strong partnerships between academia and business."

Professor Lorange has announced that he will step down as President of IMD in 2008 after more than 13 years.

The International Academy of Management, the oldest association in the field of management, had has its origin in the during the first international management congress held in Prague in 1924 at the initiative of President Jan Masaryk. At the congress, CIOS - The World Council of Management (Conseil International de l'Organisation Scientifique) was founded. CIOS established the International Academy of Management in 1958. The Academy is now independent of CIOS.

IAM members are elected after having made an outstanding contribution to the field of management either as an academic or as a practitioner. In the eighties the IAM had a revitalizing impulse under the Chancellorship of Mr. Jacques Maisonrouge, former Chairman and CEO of IBM Europe/Middle East/Africa, and this vitality has been maintained until now. The annual award in recognition of outstanding achievement to of a prestigious professional alternates between somebody someone from the business world and somebody someone from academia.