- IMD Business School
 - IMD Business School
Jan Kubes

Professor Emeritus of Strategy and Business Policy

Jan Kubes is Professor Emeritus of Strategy and Business Policy. His areas of special interest are strategy definition and implementation and organizational design, with a current focus on issues of international expansion and globalization.

Kubes has over 35 years’ experience as a consultant to business and industry, notably as a partner in McKinsey & Co. He is a board member at several companies and foundations in Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

His clients, located on all five continents, include more than 100 major multinational corporations such as Ahold, the Bata Shoe Organization, Bechtel Corporation, CarnaudMetalbox, Degussa, Hering, Jacobs Suchard, Nestlé, Shell, and Volkswagen, the government organizations of Algeria, Czech Republic, Morocco, Switzerland and Tanzania, and numerous global family-owned businesses and international organizations such as OPEC and the World Bank.

Born in Central Europe, Kubes graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and received his MBA from Harvard University.

He lectures in four languages (English, Czech, German and French) and studied Arabic, Russian, and Spanish. He is also the author and co-author of numerous books, articles, and cases, including Cases in International Business Strategy (1995).

Academic publications
Insight for Executives
Article
From no class to world class

In 1991 VW promised to invest around euro4.5bn, the largest corporate commitment of any Western company in Eastern Europe. At the same time, VW announced its goal of doubling Skoda's sales to 350,0...

Leadership Strategy
1 February 2007
Article
Comment Volkswagen a sorti Skoda du fossé

Organizational Change Strategy
16 March 2006
Article
Weg von den angestammten Märkten

Organizational Change Strategy
1 January 2006