IMD business school for management and leadership courses
Open Programs
Following the unprecedented success of 2022, ambitions were high for 2023, and open enrolment programs continued – despite myriad challenges – to grow and grow at pace across all areas of the program portfolio, including leadership, general management, sustainability, and boards and governance.
Greater growth and impact
This growth was borne out by an increase in revenue and participant numbers. As participants across our Open Programs rose to around 4,800 in 2023 (up from 4,106 in 2022), they reported consistently high levels of impact on both individual and organizational levels.
Ensuring impact is core to IMD programs. Across our Open Programs, we have continued to develop our blended learning journeys, integrating both on-campus and virtual elements, typically underlined with coaching and project work. We have further developed standalone programs into longer, joined-up transformational journeys that center on participant and longer-term impacts.
Orchestrating Winning Performance
Our flagship program for innovative ideas and connecting the world, Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP), keeps going from strength to strength. In 2023, we delivered two full sessions across our two campuses in Lausanne and Singapore, welcoming almost 700 executives worldwide.
OWP is the largest single Open Program IMD runs, with incredible diversity across industry and geography. While OWP has run since the 1990s, each and every session remains unique, with faculty bringing new and cutting-edge research to the program.
The Lausanne session saw the largest-scale deployment of AI to enhance every participant’s learning experience through the OWP+GPT app. This allowed over 40 hours of program sessions to be AI-powered. OWP participants engaged with the new technology at scale to accelerate their learning: over 700 queries were raised in 23 languages.
OWP in Singapore marked a global first for a business school with a 360-degree immersive augmented reality experience. This enabled participants to engage in a leadership simulation in an entirely new fashion, allowing them to reflect on their inherent strengths and weaknesses in an original and realistic environment supported by faculty and coaches.
New and evolving programs
- Inclusive Leadership
- Women on Boards
- Role of the Chair
- Bank Governance
- Board Readiness Diploma
- Venture Asset Management
- Generative AI for Business SPRINT
- Business Creativity and Innovation SPRINT
- ESG Foundations edX
- Measuring and Managing Sustainability Impact
- Shaping the Business Environment for Sustainability
- Business Models for the Circular Economy
- Integrating Sustainability in Firm Strategy
- Leading with Courage
- Sustainable Finance
“We’re not going to become diverse and inclusive organizations without us as leaders understanding our role and how we shape decisions.”
Our Strategy for Future Readiness program, built on the pioneering research of Howard Yu and Mark Greeven, was previously a purely virtual option. It is now delivered in a blended format, allowing participants to create a comprehensive strategic roadmap for their organizations.
In 2023, we continued to evolve our General Management Programs, incorporating an ever-more comprehensive series of options for executives. For example, we introduced mentorship, mindfulness, and meditation into Future Leaders, our program for accelerating the development of high-potential leaders.
“It’s an incredible, transformative journey, providing deeper insights that turn conventional concepts of strategy, finance, marketing, and leadership completely on their heads. More than this, Future Leaders shines a brighter light on the importance of finding opportunities to contribute to broader society and make a positive impact beyond ourselves.”
Transition to Business Leadership now also addresses the idea and practice of the complete leader, ranging from working on the power of breathing to engaging with the concept of non-market competition and working on a strategic project at the business unit level.
“Key takeaways include the importance of taking the proper time to understand and frame problems before seeking solutions, having a set of tools to experiment with rather than a rigid recipe, being present, leading with purpose, and creating a high-performing “psychologically safe” team.”
