IMD has named the winner of its 2026 MBA Venture Award, backing students ready to launch new businesses after graduation.
Amanda Halvarsson will receive CHF 100,000, plus mentorship, practical support, and strategic guidance from the Award’s jury members. Now in its fifth year, the award helps IMD MBAs launch ventures immediately after graduation and bring innovative business ideas to market.
Her early-stage venture, Lode Standard, aims to verify the origin of rare-earth magnets, which play a vital role in industries from electric mobility to renewable energy and defense. Halvarsson wants to help manufacturers build more transparent and resilient supply chains.
“Europe’s energy and materials independence is a defining industrial challenge of our time,” she said. “Lode Standard builds the intelligence layer for the West’s new rare-earth industry. We verify supply from mine to magnet and capture new forms of data to optimize supply chains and recycling.”
Halvarsson brings a chemical engineering background and experience at Northvolt, Johnson & Johnson, and Scania, to the venture. Her work across the automotive, battery, and industrial sectors has given her insight into the supply-chain challenges Lode Standard aims to address.
“Great ventures start with talented people who are willing to take a chance on an idea. I’m pleased to help identify these founders and support them as they take their first steps,” said Boris Collardi, Chair of the Jury. “IMD is the perfect platform for bringing together talent, innovation, and entrepreneurial ambition.”
Halvarsson joins a growing community of IMD MBA Venture Award winners turning business ideas into reality:
- Somerset Jarvis (MBA 2025) is building Structiq SA, a software that helps optimize buildings to reduce cost and carbon footprint.
- Ananya Bala (MBA 2024) has raised six-figure seed funding for her dance shoe business, Marleys, and is now seeing her shoes on dancers’ feet.
- Jasper Schakel (MBA 2023) arrived at IMD imagining a career in consulting. Today, he’s running CIWI, a company born from an idea during his MBA, with two systems already in the field.
- And Brandon Taft (MBA 2022) has helped grown his award-winning venture into Hominin.ai, securing US federal funding, developing patented technology, and taking the business to San Francisco.
