
Family Business Center

The family business resource since 1988
We are a world-leading center of excellence in research, education and outreach for family enterprises globally.
Enterprising families are at the heart of the world economy and society. In our work, we help these enterprising families, their boards and executives become the best version of themselves in order to ensure family unity and multi-generational success.
Today, our center of excellence operates from our campuses in Lausanne and Singapore and delivers off-site programs worldwide. We design and deliver open and custom programs for families, family businesses, family offices and family foundations.
Programs
Our expertise is based on our deep understanding of the complexities of family enterprises from our work with many of the leading families and family enterprises in the world over the last 30 years.




Advisory
We offer highly specialized advisory to family enterprises globally. We help nurture talent, solve problems and unlock opportunities for family enterprise systems.
We are devoted to helping families achieve multi-generational success for their families, ownership groups, enterprises and financial wealth. We provide services that transform families and owners into more capable, better organized and more united groups while supporting their enterprises, management teams, boards and financial wealth to thrive over generations.


Insights & Research
Through our research and educational work with family businesses from all over the world, we have gained some extraordinary insights into the dynamics that can drive family businesses either to outstanding achievements or to failure. With the ongoing support of the Wild Group Chair for Family Business and the Debiopharm Chair for Family Philanthropy, we have produced a wide range of publications, some published in top international academic journals.
Browse some of the Center's recent publications by type: articles - cases - books & books chapters - videos - reports & conference papers.
Discover our 2022 international project on family offices entitled “Navigating your Family Office - Across Generations.” We are actively looking for additional family offices to join the pool of families already on-board. Might you be interested?
I by IMD Magazine
2022 academic articles
Featured books
Family Business faculty have a long tradition of writing inspiring and successful books.
Media & Events
The IMD Global Family Business Center helps family enterprises ensure the sustainable success of their business and family, whether large or small. We organise webinars and give presentations at various conferences around the world or virtually.
Meet us on the road or virtually in 2022 - coming next:
- FBN 31st Global Summit, 28 September - 1 October, 2022
Keep up to date on our events, news and thought leadership. Join the Family Business Center on Linkedin and subscribe to our newsletter!
Family Business Awards
Distinguishing prestigious family businesses around the world since 1996
Promotes the indispensable role family businesses play in the global economy and serves as a platform for family businesses to exchange best practices and analyse the economic backdrop.

Celebrating commitment to sustainability by family businesses since 2019
Rewards family-owned enterprises that are leaders in sustainability, demonstrating exceptional breadth and depth in their sustainability strategy, and exemplary implementation and impact.

About the Family Business Center
With sincere thanks to Wild Group and Debiopharm
We are very fortunate to benefit from two Chairs dedicated to the study and support of family businesses.

The Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses has been instrumental in funding research and educational activities at the Center since 2001.
The purpose of this Chair is the exploration of the management needs of family-…

The Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses has been instrumental in funding research and educational activities at the Center since 2001.
The purpose of this Chair is the exploration of the management needs of family-held businesses and strategic partnerships in this field. Another of its aims is the furthering of entrepreneurial culture throughout business owning families and enterprising families.
The Chair was donated by Hans-Peter Wild, former owner of Wild Flavors (which he sold to ADM in 2014) and current owner and chairman of the Wild Group and the Capri-Sun Group (which includes the world-famous Capri Sun fruit juice brand.)
IMD is extremely grateful to Dr. Wild for his continued support of family business research and education. His generosity and commitment help to ensure that IMD remains a world pioneer in this fascinating field.
Over the past 20 years prestigious family business faculty were appointed to the Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses and all have delivered premium programs and published cutting-edge research and insights in family business, contributing significantly to both the reach and reputation the Center continues to enjoy today.
As of 2001, Professor John Ward held the Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses. His teaching and research interests are in family enterprise continuity, governance, philanthropy, and sustainable strategy. Professor Ward has authored several books including the best-selling "Keeping the Family Business Healthy", "Creating Effective Boards for Private Enterprises", "Strategic Planning for the Family Business", "Perpetuating the Family Business", as well as the "Family Business Leadership Series", several cases, and numerous articles.
In 2013, Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez was appointed Wild Group Professor of Family Business. Her research as Wild Group Chair include a specific focus on strategic alliances among privately-owned companies as well as between public and private firms. In particular it investigates how to preserve key drivers of family business performance – values and corporate culture - during merger times and beyond. Professor Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez has authored several books: "Governance in Family Enterprises, Maximizing Economic and Emotional Success", "A Woman's Place, The Crucial Roles of Women in Family Business", "Sharing Wisdom, Building Values, Letters from Family Business Owners to Their Successors ", "Family Business, Key Issues", "Why Me? Wealth: Creating, Receiving and Passing It On", "Who, Me? Family Business Succession. A Practical Guide for the Next Generation".
In 2020, IMD appoints family business expert Alfredo De Massis to spearhead research within the Wild Group Chair at IMD. Alfredo’s research focuses on the management, governance and behavioral aspects of family enterprises and how to ensure their prosperity across generations. He has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in strategic decision-making, and manage the paradox of tradition and innovation.

The Debiopharm Chair for Family Philanthropy aims to increase the social and financial impact of family giving as well as to develop best practices in family philanthropy. Another of its aims is to leverage…

The Debiopharm Chair for Family Philanthropy aims to increase the social and financial impact of family giving as well as to develop best practices in family philanthropy. Another of its aims is to leverage philanthropy as a catalyst for the transmission of family values across generations, branches and nationalities.
The Chair was donated in 2016 by Thierry Mauvernay, President and Delegate of the Board of Debiopharm Group. Read more

IMD was the birthplace of family business education in 1988.
We are forever indebted to Frank Tilley, former executive-in-residence, who identified family business as a field IMD ought to be active in, and to Professor Alden Lank, the first faculty member to lead the initiative.
Professors John Davis, Ivan Lansberg and John Ward were instrumental in launching the first Leading the Family Business (LFB) program in 1988. Dr. Stephan Schmidheiny underwrote the pilot study.
The IMD Global Family Business Award was launched in 1996, with The Lego Group, the first of many prestigious winners over the years. The award has continued to grow in reputation, promoting the indispensable role that family businesses play in the global economy.
LFB continues to be an enormous success, generating much interest from around the world. The subsequent demand for custom programs (tailor-made for specific family business needs) has increased steadily and, in 2004, after welcoming more than 400 families from over 40 countries, we celebrated the 1,000th family business participant milestone.
In 2008, the 20th anniversary of family business research and education at IMD was marked with the presence of Warren Buffett, who engaged openly with faculty and families alike. In 2009, the Biennial Family Business Forum was introduced as well as the first program specifically for Chinese family businesses.
The IMD Global Family Business Center, in its current form, was officially inaugurated in 2011. Growing demand saw the welcome introduction of a new program: Leading the Family Office (LFO) in 2013.
In 2019, the IMD-Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award was launched, celebrating and rewarding effort, performance and progress in the field of sustainability.
In September 2019, Professor Peter Vogel took over the directorship of the Global Family Business Center. Before him, prestigious family business faculty have led IMD’s family business initiatives over the years, including Joachim Schwass, Denise Rouvinez. All have delivered premium programs and published cutting-edge research and insights in family business, contributing significantly to both the reach and reputation that the Center continues to enjoy today.
The story continues...

2022 POETS & QUANTS BEST 40 UNDER 40 MBA PROFESSORS
Peter Vogel selected > read more
2022 TWO IMD EXPERTS IN TOP 100 FAMILY BUSINESS INFLUENCERS LIST
> read more
2022 INTERNATIONAL FAMILY ENTERPRISE RESEARCH ACADEMY (IFERA) AWARDS
- BEST PAPER AWARD: "Welcome or not? A mixed methods study on artificial intelligence technologies in family-influenced firms" by Jonas Soluk, Ivan Miroshnychenko and Satish Nambisan.
- Best Reviewer Award: Ivan Miroshnychenko nominated
2022 EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT (EURAM) AWARDS
- BEST PAPER AWARD on “Management Challenges in Family Business”: “Artificial intelligence adoption in family-influenced firms: A social capital perspective” by Jonas Soluk, Ivan Miroshnychenko and Satish Nambisan.
2022 FAMILY FIRM INSTITUTE INTERNATIONAL AWARD (FFI) AWARD
- BEST UNPUBLISHED RESEARCH PAPER: “Conflict Origin and Management Mechanisms in Family Firms” by Marco Mismetti, Cristina Bettinelli, and Alfredo De Massis.
- HONORABLE MENTION: “The global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on corporate performance of family and nonfamily firms” by Ivan Miroshnychenko, Giorgio Vocalelli, Alfredo De Massis, Stefano Grassi, and Francesco Ravazzolo.
2021 FAMILY FIRM INSTITUE INTERNATIONAL AWARD (FFI)
- The Center being recognized for its major contributions to education, research, and outreach > read more
2021 INTERNATIONAL FAMILY ENTERPRISE RESEARCH ACADEMY (IFERA) AWARDS
- BEST TEACHING CASE STUDY: "Brown-Forman: nothing better in the market" by Marta Widz, Marc Chauvet under the supervision of Benoit Leleux
- BEST PAPER ON GENDER DIVERSITY: "Toward a reconciliation of discrepant perspectives on debt in female led firms" by Alfredo De Massis, Fernando Muñoz-Bullón, María José Sánchez-Bueno, Pilar Velasco and Silvio Vismara.
- BEST PAPER ON CONFERENCE THEME: "Family Business and the Natural Environment" by Ivan Miroshnychenko, Danny Miller, Alfredo De Massis, and Isabel Le-Breton-Miller.
2021 FAMILY AWARD at the Family Enterprise Research Conference (FERC)
- BEST RESEACH ON DIVERSITY: "Women’s leadership and leverage decisions: Exploring the nature of family firms and their governance,” co-authored with Fernando Muñoz-Bullón, María José Sánchez-Bueno, Pilar Velasco and Silvio Vismara.
2021 AXIOM BUSINESS BOOK AWARD
- SILVER MEDALin the category Philanthropy/Non-profit/Sustainability: for the book Family philanthropy navigator: The inspirational guide for philanthropic families on their giving journey by Peter Vogel, Etienne Eichenberger and Malgorzata Kurak.
2021 FAMILY FIRM INSTITUE INTERNATIONAL AWARD (FFI)
- Ivan Miroshnychenko received the Family Business Review Excellent Reviewer Award 2021
2020 TWO IMD EXPERTS IN TOP 100 FAMILY BUSINESS INFLUENCERS LIST
> read more
The Center offers pioneering research, executive education and advisory services that bring together a unique team.

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors…

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors under the age of 40 in 2022 and included in Family Capital’s Top 100 Family Business Influencers list in both 2020 and 2022.
He works with families, owners, boards, and executives of family enterprises and family offices around the world, focusing on transformations, governance, ownership and leadership succession, wealth management, fostering entrepreneurialism and innovation within the system, and on establishing professional boards and leadership teams. He does so through major transformation journeys that include custom programs, advisory work, and open programs, as well as tailored diagnostics and workshops.
The IMD Global Family Business Center aims to be the world's leading center of excellence in the domain, and to act as a trusted learning partner for global enterprising families and a safe space where they can go for neutral advice and support. Its mission is to help enterprising families ensure family unity and business success across generations while also having a positive impact on society.
Vogel says long-term success and unity depend on having a healthy family enterprise ecosystem, so this requires a holistic approach covering the legacy family business, any new businesses, the family office and investment activities, and all aspects of what he calls “total family wealth” – human, social, financial and reputational capital.
He is Director of a suite of programs offered by the Center – Leading the Family Business (LFB), which was launched in 1988 as the world's first family business program, Navigating your Family Enterprise into the future (NFE), and Leading the Family Office (LFO).
Helping with the establishment of family offices accounts for a growing share of the Center's work, with many families now looking to transition from being a family in business to managing their private wealth through a family office structure. It is therefore working on the development of an advanced LFO program, which will act as a certification program for aspiring family officers.
Vogel is also Director of the IMD Global Family Business Award, which recognizes excellence in the art of building and managing a successful, sustainable and well-governed family-owned enterprise. The award was established in 1996 and is now seen as the most sought-after prize in the field of family business.
In addition, he is co-author of the award-winning book Family Philanthropy Navigator, the first in a planned trilogy on family businesses. The book will be followed by Family Office Navigator in 2022 and Family Enterprise Navigator in 2024.
Family Philanthropy Navigator, which offers a step-by-step guide that philanthropic families can use as they seek to make a real difference through their giving, earned praise from Beatrice Fihn, winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and Executive Director of ICAN, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal in 2021.
Vogel has published articles in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has written several books and book chapters as well as scientific and practitioner-oriented reports. His work is frequently referenced by leading newspapers and other media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Financial Times, and TechCrunch.
He is a regular conference speaker and has appeared at TEDxLausanne, the Global Economic Symposium, the Family Matters Forum, the Family Business Network Global Summit, the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, and the St. Gallen Symposium, among others.
He is also an Associate Partner of the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, and an alumnus of the Forum’s Global Shapers Community.
Before joining IMD in 2017, he served as Director of Custom Programs and Business Development at the Executive School of University of St. Gallen. He was previously Assistant Professor of Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen, as well as Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Swiss Start-up Monitor Foundation.
Before embarking on his academic career, Vogel was an entrepreneur. He launched several ventures in the software segment and remains Chairman of the investment firm Delta Venture Partners.
Selected publications
Family Office Navigator (IMD, 2022)
The Sika takeover battle (IMD, 2021)
Family Philanthropy Navigator (IMD, 2020)
From venture idea to venture opportunity (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2017)
Recognition
Named on Poets&Quants Best 40 under 40 list of leading business school professors (2022)
Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner (2021)
Named on Family Capital’s list of Top 100 Family Business Influencers (2020 and 2022)
Education
BSc (Mechanical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
MSc (Biomedical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
PhD (Entrepreneurship)
EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in…

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in strategic decision making and manage the paradox of tradition and innovation. At IMD he provides intellectual contributions by working on collaboration and scientific advisory activities within the Wild Group Chair in Family Business.
De Massis is one of the world's leading family business academics. In February 2022 he was included in Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list for his thought leadership in the family business field. In 2020 he was ranked as the most influential and productive author of the decade in the family business research field in a bibliometric study published in the European Journal of Family Business, and in 2015 Family Capital named him as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors.
His research focuses on the management, governance and behavioral aspects of family enterprises and how to ensure their prosperity across generations. His work examines how they align economic goals with other objectives such as maintaining family harmony and control of the business, creating jobs for the next generation, succession planning, and nurturing the reputation of the family in its community. He shows that successful family firms excel at leveraging their tradition, history, and heritage as strategic resources to enable innovation.
He also works closely with large and small businesses in several countries to help them build rigorous and reliable knowledge to promote long-term prosperity across generations. He recently helped companies and institutions including the UK government to address the new challenges that COVID-19 created for family firms, such as the need for rapid and unexpected succession, the dehumanization of relationships due to remote working, the effects of emotional vulnerabilities, and the salience of patrimonial and liquidity issues for families in business.
De Massis' prolific writings include seven books, notably the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business and Family Business Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, and more than 150 articles in leading academic and professional journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Academy of Management Perspectives, California Management Review, Family Business Review, Small Business Economics, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Research Policy and Global Strategy Journal.
Due to its economic and practical relevance, his research has been featured in numerous media outlets including the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Il Sole 24 Ore, and RAI. He is also an in-demand public speaker and is regularly invited to give keynote speeches at conferences, lectures to professional and academic audiences, and media interviews.
He also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Board and member of the steering committee of FA.B.R.I., [AD1] a non-profit association dedicated to Italian family enterprises, as Co-Director and Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Observatory on Italian Family Offices, and as member of the Scientific Board of the Italian Family Officer Association (AIFO). In addition, he has been Chair of the Strategic Interest Group on Family Business Research at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Family Business (IFB). He was previously Chairman of the European Leadership Council and a member of the Global Board of the STEP Project for Family Enterprising founded by Babson College.
In addition to his role at IMD, De Massis remains Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Business at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy, where he founded the Unibz Centre for Family Business Management, and he continues to support family business research projects at Lancaster University Management School’s Centre for Family Business in the UK, which he previously directed. He formerly served as a professor at the University of Bergamo, where he co-founded the Center for Young and Family Enterprise.
He is also Editor of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and Associate Editor of Family Business Review, two prestigious and influential journals in the field of family business, and Editor of FamilyBusiness.org, a US social media platform dedicated to sharing learning resources with family business practitioners.
He serves on the editorial boards of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Family Business Strategy, and has been guest editor of more than 20 leading journals’ special issues on family business topics.
Before embarking on his academic career, De Massis worked as a manager for SCS Consulting, a strategy consultant at Accenture, and as a financial analyst at the Italian Stock Exchange.
Selected publications
Are narcissistic CEOs good or bad for family firm innovation? (Human Relations, 2022)
Mining the past: History scripting strategies and competitive advantage in a family business (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2022)
Entrepreneurial by design: How organizational design affects family and nonfamily firms’ opportunity exploitation (Journal of Management Studies, 2020)
Managing the tradition and innovation paradox in family firms: A family imprinting perspective (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2019)
Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business (Edward Elgar, 2020)
Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors (Journal of Business Venturing, 2018)
Financial wealth, socioemotional wealth and IPO underpricing in family firms: A two-stage gamble model (Academy of Management Journal, 2018)
Innovation through tradition: Lessons from innovative family businesses and directions for future research (Academy of Management Perspectives, 2016)
Recognition
Named on Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list (2022)
Ranked as most influential and productive family business author of the decade (2020)
Named by Family Capital as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors (2015)
Education
Master of Science (Management Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano
PhD (Management, Economics, and Industrial Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano

Mario Marconi is senior advisor and partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise, a highly specialized international advisory firm serving family enterprises.
Based in Zurich, Mr. Marconi advises…

Mario Marconi is senior advisor and partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise, a highly specialized international advisory firm serving family enterprises.
Based in Zurich, Mr. Marconi advises enterprising families globally on strategies for long-term success, governance, succession transitions, wealth regeneration, wealth transfer, family office, impact investing, and family philanthropy. With a background in wealth management, investment banking, and sustainable philanthropy, his focus is helping families with their financial strategies, be it for their private wealth or business needs. His work aims at establishing the best financial strategies for families in order to reach their long-term objectives as well as supporting them in designing the right wealth structure and setup. He also advises family offices, working with families to review and design their existing or desired structure.
In addition, Mr. Marconi speaks on the topics of sustainability and philanthropy, and advises a number of ventures in the philanthropic and impact investing space. He has written a number of articles on family philanthropy and investing, including three prominent pieces: “Wealth Can Deliver More Than Financial Returns” (Euromoney, 2014); “SME Impact Investing in Frontier Markets: A Novel Value Proposition for Private Investors” (Euromoney, 2013); and “Banks Need to Play a Larger Role in Social Good” (Forbes, 2012).
Mr. Marconi comes out of the financial services industry. For more than 25 years, he held executive positions at UBS where he grew and led multiple areas of the private bank. As the Global Head of the UHNW Family Services Group, Mr. Marconi built UBS’ holistic wealth management area and established a number of services to help families manage all aspects of their wealth including succession planning, family office management, family governance, sustainable impact investing, and family philanthropy.
Mr. Marconi holds an M.B.A. from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Geneva. He is fluent in English, Italian, French, and German.

Ivan Miroshnychenko is Research Fellow & Term Research Professor at IMD’s Global Family Business Centre and Sustainability Initiative. Ivan holds a PhD in Management from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced…

Ivan Miroshnychenko is Research Fellow & Term Research Professor at IMD’s Global Family Business Centre and Sustainability Initiative. Ivan holds a PhD in Management from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Cum Laude) and an MSc in Management & Strategy (Merit) from the University of Sheffield.
He carries out research on economics and management of family business and sustainability. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Family Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Business Strategy & the Environment, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, R&D Management, and Journal of Cleaner Production, amongst others.
Ivan’s work has also received prestigious research awards and grants from various public funding bodies and private organizations, including the Academy of Management, International Family Enterprise Research Academy, the Family Firm Institute, the Swedish Institute, Study Foundation of the Berlin House of Representatives, and the Südtiroler Sparkasse Foundation.

Matthew develops and manages the relationships with business owning families, family offices and strategic partners. He oversees the design and delivery of learning journeys as well as operations within the center.
A…

Matthew develops and manages the relationships with business owning families, family offices and strategic partners. He oversees the design and delivery of learning journeys as well as operations within the center.
A graduate of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), Matthew has gained solid management experience in the health and leisure industry, in FinTech and more recently in education. Prior to joining IMD in 2015, Matthew was the Head of Partnerships and directed the dynamic and far-reaching alumni network at EHL.
He has strong interpersonal, communication and management skills as well as a very positive outlook. Matthew is married, has two children, an English bulldog, is a keen sportman and coaches football.

Malgorzata earned her Ph.D. in Economics, Management and Organization from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain. She has an extensive research, business and teaching experience gained as Global Shaper…

Malgorzata earned her Ph.D. in Economics, Management and Organization from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain. She has an extensive research, business and teaching experience gained as Global Shaper of the WEF Geneva Hub, Visiting Fellow at Bruegel, Visiting Fellow at the University of Groningen, Co-Director at the Global Leadership Initiative (partnered with Rotary International and the United Nations), Secretary General at the Barcelona Debating Society, and Teaching Assistant at ESADE Business School.
Within her research, she focuses on family firms’ governance and management practices that allow them to translate their larger visions into workable strategies and explore their relation to philanthropy, innovation and performance. She is experienced in using data to examine the range of plausible explanations for discrepant findings and surprising patterns of relations.

Virginie coordinates and ensures the smooth running of center's activities. She manages various projects and initiatives including center's events, communication and the two Family Business awards (IMD Global Family…

Virginie coordinates and ensures the smooth running of center's activities. She manages various projects and initiatives including center's events, communication and the two Family Business awards (IMD Global Family Business Award and IMD-Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award).
Virginie joined IMD 20 years ago and worked in various departements including Program Operations, MBA International Consulting Project, Sustainability and CEO Center.
Prior to joining IMD, Virginie worked for Swissair mostly in sales, press and public relations and marketing.
Family businesses are highly complex. They must continuously align the interests of the family with the ownership and objectives of the business. They typically have a very long-term, values-based approach; each generation wanting to ensure the success of the business for the next.
Complicated and sensitive family, business, ownership and financial issues can often present a tough challenge for family businesses. Family conflicts can flare up over a lack of clarity on the evolving roles of family members or diverging business visions. These issues present risks to both the family and the business. We are committed to focusing on the characteristics and challenges unique to family businesses.
We do so with an incredible pool of faculty experts in their field.
Faculty team
teaching in family business programs

Sameh Abadir is a Professor of Leadership and Negotiation at IMD. Abadir's fields of expertise are negotiation, conflict management, crisis management, and leadership. Before his academic career, he served in the…

Sameh Abadir is a Professor of Leadership and Negotiation at IMD. Abadir's fields of expertise are negotiation, conflict management, crisis management, and leadership. Before his academic career, he served in the Egyptian Special Forces and was an executive at a large multinational, and his military and corporate experience brings a unique perspective to his teaching.
Abadir says everything is subject to negotiation in the modern business world, so negotiation skills are vital – but managers often fall into some common traps. These include being overoptimistic, overconfident, or arrogant, and going into negotiations believing that you have to reach a deal. People who assume they have to close a deal set themselves up for a poor deal, he argues. Another mistake is to think that negotiation is a zero-sum game in which one side wins and the other loses, which misses the point that the process is about increasing the size of the pie and can therefore have a win-win outcome. Some negotiators also make the error of believing that the other party is out to get them, whereas both sides are quite reasonably looking to create and capture value.
In crisis management situations, leaders need a team with a range of skills, including not just people who are innately smart but also those who have made the behavioral choice to be emotionally smart by being kind and humble. In crisis negotiations, he says, you need a team that’s able to combine being confident, humble, smart, and kind, all at the same time.
Abadir believes the role of a leader has changed fundamentally, and that those who fail to grasp this are likely to be under the erroneous illusion that they are in control. Vertical hierarchical organizational structures have given way to complex systems in which people are working in teams in different locations around the globe and communicating in a language that is not their mother tongue, so the old way of giving orders on the shop floor has gone. Leaders therefore have to accept that they cannot control everything and find a new way of managing.
Abadir advises companies on negotiations and runs negotiation workshops in English, French and Arabic. He has recently directed custom programs for Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Jerónimo Martins, ArcelorMittal, and Merck, and is Co-Director of IMD's signature Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) and Negotiating for Value Creation (NVC) open programs.
He is also Chairman of his family business, which is based in Egypt with operations across the Middle East and Africa.
Prior to joining IMD in 2018, he was an Adjunct Professor at INSEAD for 15 years. He was previously an executive at Sodexo, one of the world's largest multinational corporations, and served in the Egyptian Special Forces between 1985 and 1988.
Selected publications
Toolkit for strategic leading through a crisis (I by IMD, 2022)
Questions to ask as you prepare to negotiate a deal (I by IMD, 2022)
Negotiation techniques for a global dealmaking frenzy (I by IMD, 2021)
The two roles leaders must play in a crisis (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)
The Innovative Business School: Mentoring Today’s Leaders for Tomorrow’s Global Challenges (Routledge, 2020)
From safety, through sustainability to stewardship (FFI Practitioner, 2020)
Bicultural managers leading multicultural teams (International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 2020)
e-Negotiations: Networking and Cross-Cultural Business Transactions (Routledge, 2012)
Recognition
INSEAD Best Program Director award (2018)
INSEAD Best Professor award (2018)
Education
MBA
Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po)
PhD (Economics)
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Ben Bryant is a Professor of Leadership and Organization at IMD in Lausanne and the director of the IMD CEO Learning Center. He holds the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Chair for Responsible Leadership. Ben is a highly skilled…

Ben Bryant is a Professor of Leadership and Organization at IMD in Lausanne and the director of the IMD CEO Learning Center. He holds the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Chair for Responsible Leadership. Ben is a highly skilled educator, executive team coach, and speaker. He works with a wide range of CEOs and their executive teams and presents his research at many leading academic institutions.
Through IMD’s CEO Learning Center, Ben leads an experienced faculty team that creates learning events for senior executives in trusting environments. The Center leverages the collective and individual potential of leaders by helping them to learn new ways of working together and to unlearn unhelpful patterns of beliefs and behaviors.
For more than 20 years, Ben has accumulated extensive experience in the facilitation and development of senior executives at IMD Lausanne, London Business School, and the Australian Graduate School of Management. He has worked globally in Europe, the US, Asia and Australia for a wide range of leading companies including Oracle, LVMH, Daimler, Maersk, Adecco, Mars, British Telecom, GlaxoSmithKline, Zurich Financial Services, Standard Chartered Bank, Emirates Airlines, Mahindra, and Danish Broadcasting. He has also worked closely with numerous smaller entrepreneurial businesses.
Ben’s models and frameworks of leadership have been used in the development of top teams, senior and mid-level executives, and in the development of strategy, execution and change. His research into cultures of innovation has been used to guide organizations to generate new sources of value creation.
Ben frequently works with senior teams to help them build a climate of trust, openness, challenge and commitment. He is passionate about helping managers to reduce boundaries created by functional silos and national borders and to manage conflict and tension. His research also focuses on the reflective capabilities and the “mindfulness” of leaders in complex organizations and the capacity of leaders to to learn from experience and context.
Ben has a PhD in Organizational Change from the University of London (London Business School) as well as an MBA from the University of NSW and undergraduate degrees and diplomas in Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, History of Education, French Language Literature and Culture, Music, and the Humanities..

Professor Cossin is the founder and director of the IMD Global Board Center, the originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology and an advocate of Stewardship. He is the author and co-author of books…

Professor Cossin is the founder and director of the IMD Global Board Center, the originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology and an advocate of Stewardship. He is the author and co-author of books such as Inspiring Stewardship, book chapters (such as Governance Risk: A Guide for Investors) and many articles in the fields of governance, investments, risks and stewardship, several of which have obtained citations of excellence or other awards.
He works with owners, boards and senior leaders to provide the latest thinking on best-in-class governance, board effectiveness, the governance and selection of investments, board dynamics and strategy design. He favors an adaptive and interactive approach to finding distinctive solutions for organizations on a wide range of governance topics. His latest research focuses on stewardship, how we can foster organizations to have long-term positive social impact while creating economic value for all. His past research has dealt with optimizing governance in critical decision making, M&As and risks.
In his work with boards, Professor Cossin helps them enhance organizational performance through strategy involvement, best-in-class decision making, enhancing board culture and general governance (including board restructurings). As a clinician of governance excellence in many regions of the world, he is an advocate of adapting practices to the social, geopolitical, technological and economic transformation through distinctive solutions allowing for long term wealth creation.
He also looks at the latest approaches to risk issues. His work addresses not only technical risks (for which he uses his finance background) but also those arising from a number of different factors: psychological biases, social and cultural environments, technological changes (from AI to cybersecurity), strategic choices and/or from governance structure (for which he levers his long experience with many leading organizations).
Professor Cossin is an advisor and/or executive teacher with the United Nations, central banks of several countries, ministries as well as sovereign wealth funds and supranational organizations (European Central Bank, IFC, IOC), the boards or executive committees of corporations, financial institutions and funds in Europe, Asia, Americas, Africa and the Middle East. He gained significant experience working with the oil and gas industry (Schlumberger, Shell, Sinopec, Saudi Aramco, Qatar Petroleum, and others) and the banking industry (HSBC, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, ICBC and others), but he has also worked with many other industries (media, luxury goods, retail, shipping, asset management, etc.). He also advises some leading non-profit organisations on governance (UNICEF, the Red Cross). He is a member of the Risk Who's Who Society, the American Finance Association, the Eastern Finance Association, and the European Finance Association.
Professor Cossin holds a PhD from Harvard University (Robert C. Merton Chair) and is a former Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics (USA). He is a former student of ENS rue d'Ulm (France) and holds master degrees from Sorbonne University and EHESS (France).
Before joining IMD, Didier Cossin worked for Goldman Sachs (London, UK) and pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf (Tokyo, Japan) as it was considering an initial offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. He has taught at Harvard University, where he obtained two Derek Bok Awards for excellence in teaching, and was associate then full professor at HEC, University of Lausanne (1993-2002). He chaired the university’s Department of Management (1995-1997); was the Director of both its Institute of Banking & Financial Management (1997-2002) and its PhD in Management (1997-1999). At IMD, he has led or co-led the pension fund, the recruiting process, the faculty policies committee, client engagement initiatives and a strategy review as well as other administrative responsibilities supporting the success of the organization.
He has received distinctions such as the UBS Chair in Banking and Finance at IMD, the Febelfin BFI Chair and the Deloitte Risk Management Chair from other institutions.
Professor Cossin directs the High Performance Boards program at IMD as of June 2011..

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in…

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in strategic decision making and manage the paradox of tradition and innovation. At IMD he provides intellectual contributions by working on collaboration and scientific advisory activities within the Wild Group Chair in Family Business.
De Massis is one of the world's leading family business academics. In February 2022 he was included in Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list for his thought leadership in the family business field. In 2020 he was ranked as the most influential and productive author of the decade in the family business research field in a bibliometric study published in the European Journal of Family Business, and in 2015 Family Capital named him as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors.
His research focuses on the management, governance and behavioral aspects of family enterprises and how to ensure their prosperity across generations. His work examines how they align economic goals with other objectives such as maintaining family harmony and control of the business, creating jobs for the next generation, succession planning, and nurturing the reputation of the family in its community. He shows that successful family firms excel at leveraging their tradition, history, and heritage as strategic resources to enable innovation.
He also works closely with large and small businesses in several countries to help them build rigorous and reliable knowledge to promote long-term prosperity across generations. He recently helped companies and institutions including the UK government to address the new challenges that COVID-19 created for family firms, such as the need for rapid and unexpected succession, the dehumanization of relationships due to remote working, the effects of emotional vulnerabilities, and the salience of patrimonial and liquidity issues for families in business.
De Massis' prolific writings include seven books, notably the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business and Family Business Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, and more than 150 articles in leading academic and professional journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Academy of Management Perspectives, California Management Review, Family Business Review, Small Business Economics, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Research Policy and Global Strategy Journal.
Due to its economic and practical relevance, his research has been featured in numerous media outlets including the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Il Sole 24 Ore, and RAI. He is also an in-demand public speaker and is regularly invited to give keynote speeches at conferences, lectures to professional and academic audiences, and media interviews.
He also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Board and member of the steering committee of FA.B.R.I., [AD1] a non-profit association dedicated to Italian family enterprises, as Co-Director and Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Observatory on Italian Family Offices, and as member of the Scientific Board of the Italian Family Officer Association (AIFO). In addition, he has been Chair of the Strategic Interest Group on Family Business Research at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Family Business (IFB). He was previously Chairman of the European Leadership Council and a member of the Global Board of the STEP Project for Family Enterprising founded by Babson College.
In addition to his role at IMD, De Massis remains Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Business at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy, where he founded the Unibz Centre for Family Business Management, and he continues to support family business research projects at Lancaster University Management School’s Centre for Family Business in the UK, which he previously directed. He formerly served as a professor at the University of Bergamo, where he co-founded the Center for Young and Family Enterprise.
He is also Editor of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and Associate Editor of Family Business Review, two prestigious and influential journals in the field of family business, and Editor of FamilyBusiness.org, a US social media platform dedicated to sharing learning resources with family business practitioners.
He serves on the editorial boards of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Family Business Strategy, and has been guest editor of more than 20 leading journals’ special issues on family business topics.
Before embarking on his academic career, De Massis worked as a manager for SCS Consulting, a strategy consultant at Accenture, and as a financial analyst at the Italian Stock Exchange.
Selected publications
Are narcissistic CEOs good or bad for family firm innovation? (Human Relations, 2022)
Mining the past: History scripting strategies and competitive advantage in a family business (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2022)
Entrepreneurial by design: How organizational design affects family and nonfamily firms’ opportunity exploitation (Journal of Management Studies, 2020)
Managing the tradition and innovation paradox in family firms: A family imprinting perspective (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2019)
Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business (Edward Elgar, 2020)
Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors (Journal of Business Venturing, 2018)
Financial wealth, socioemotional wealth and IPO underpricing in family firms: A two-stage gamble model (Academy of Management Journal, 2018)
Innovation through tradition: Lessons from innovative family businesses and directions for future research (Academy of Management Perspectives, 2016)
Recognition
Named on Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list (2022)
Ranked as most influential and productive family business author of the decade (2020)
Named by Family Capital as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors (2015)
Education
Master of Science (Management Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano
PhD (Management, Economics, and Industrial Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano

Stéphane Garelli is Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD and Professor at the University of Lausanne.
He has founded the IMD World Competitiveness Centreand has pioneered research in this field for 30 years…

Stéphane Garelli is Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD and Professor at the University of Lausanne.
He has founded the IMD World Competitiveness Centre and has pioneered research in this field for 30 years.
Professor Garelli is closely connected to the world of business. He is, among others, Chairman of the Board of Directors of "Le Temps", the leading French language Swiss newspaper. He was formerly Chairman of the Board of the Sandoz Financial and Banking Holding, and member of the board of the Banque Edouard Constant.
Professor Garelli was the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and of the Davos Symposium for many years. For twelve years he was also permanent senior adviser to the European management of Hewlett-Packard.
He is a member of a number of institutes, such as: China Enterprise Management Association, Board of the ‘Fondation Jean Monet pour l'Europe’, The Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, the Mexican Council for Competitiveness, etc. and an advisory committee member of the Thai Management Association. He is also a member of the International Olympic Committee commission on Sustainability and Legacy
He is the author of numerous publications on competitiveness and global business, and he published his best-selling book "Top Class Competitors - How Nations, Firms and Individuals Succeed in the New World of Competitiveness" with Wiley. His latest book in French is: “Etes-vous un tigre, un chat ou un dinosaure’, chez Slatkine, Genève.
He was a member of the Constitutional Assembly of his local state - Vaud, Switzerland from 1999 to 2002.
Stéphane Garelli holds a PhD in economics from the University of Lausanne.

As a former Olympic finalist, award-winning writer, executive coach, and speaker with more than 20 years of corporate experience with large multinationals, Susan Goldsworthy brings knowledge from the fields of sport,…

As a former Olympic finalist, award-winning writer, executive coach, and speaker with more than 20 years of corporate experience with large multinationals, Susan Goldsworthy brings knowledge from the fields of sport, business and neuroscience to her leadership development work. She focuses on how leadership needs to change in an increasingly uncertain world, working with people and companies to turn knowledge into behavior to create the conditions for healthy high performance.
Goldsworthy believes that our current way of working and living is unsustainable – not only for ourselves, but for other species that share our planet – so the need for change with new narratives is critical. This includes a change in the style and type of leadership of organizations. No one person has all the answers, so the model of "power over" needs to be replaced by one of "power with" to cultivate conditions where people can flourish and co-create solutions to the challenges organizations face. This means uniting and working across departments, industries, cultures, and age groups, with a focus on inclusivity and diversity.
Goldsworthy has worked at senior management level in both publicly and privately owned companies in Japan, America and Europe, and has extensive experience in leading global communications, culture, brand management and diversity programs. She has also run her own successful business in leadership development, executive coaching and change communications for more than a decade. She is therefore able to offer expert guidance to individuals, teams, and companies on how organizations can develop clear, consistent, and credible narratives and instill a culture of sustainable high performance.
Notably, she has a long list of postgraduate qualifications and was one of the first people in the world to be awarded an Executive Masters in the Neuroscience of Leadership. Meanwhile, her doctoral research with Hult Ashridge International Business School explores [AD1] how leaders have a responsibility to co-create conditions for hope and agency in the current world context. As a highly qualified C-suite executive coach, she is also trained in the use of a number of psychometric assessment tools.
Before embarking on her studies, Goldsworthy had a successful international swimming career during which she was an Olympic finalist, medal winner at the European Championships and Commonwealth Games and British record holder for five years.
She is co-author of three award-winning books. The recently released Where the Wild Things Were is a story for all ages about leadership, responsibility, hope and biodiversity loss, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Bronze Medal in 2020. Meanwhile, Care to Dare: Unleashing Astonishing Potential through Secure Base Leadership, written with Duncan Coombe and George Kohlrieser in 2012, and Choosing Change: How Leaders and Organizations Drive Results One Person at a Time, co-authored with Walter McFarland in 2013, were both named among Soundview’s best business books of the year and won Axiom Business Book Award Silver Medals.
Goldsworthy works with a number of multinational clients across a wide range of industries. Her work with aviation technology group SITA won gold in the Excellence in Executive Education category of the 2021 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards. The category is specifically for executive education providers delivering targeted programs for specific clients. Goldsworthy and her team were honored for their work on the SITA 5.0 Leadership Journey, an IMD custom program for the company's top 200 executives.
In addition, she is Associate Director of IMD's CLEAR (Cultivating leadership Energy through Awareness and Reflection) senior leadership program and Co-Director of the new IMD Executive Coaching Certificate.
She is a fellow of the Institute of Data & Marketing, a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and the International Coaching Federation.
Selected publications
Can we have two golds? (Today's Manager, 2021)
Recovery: The forgotten aspect of high performance (Today's Manager, 2021)
Jan Van Hasenbroek: A 'red-pencil' leader at a crossroads (IMD, 2020)
Where the Wild Things Were (IMD, 2019)
Choosing Change: How Leaders and Organizations Drive Results One Person at a Time (McGraw Hill, 2013)
Care to Dare: Unleashing Astonishing Potential through Secure Base Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2012)
Recognition
Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards gold medal for Excellence in Executive Education (2021)
Axiom Business Book Awards bronze medal winner (2020)
Axiom Business Book Awards double silver medal winner (2014)
Named on Soundview best business books of the year list (2013 and 2014)
Education
BA (Hons) (Journalism and Industrial Psychology)
San Diego State University
MSc (Consulting and Coaching for Change)
HEC/University of Oxford
Executive Masters (Neuroscience of Leadership)
Middlesex University/NeuroLeadership Institute
PhD (Organizational Change) (finalizing)
Ashridge Hult International Business School

Jennifer Jordan is a social psychologist and is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD.
Professor Jordan's teaching, research, and consulting focus on the areas of digital leadership, ethics,…

Jennifer Jordan is a social psychologist and is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD.
Professor Jordan's teaching, research, and consulting focus on the areas of digital leadership, ethics, influence, and power. Professor Jordan has received specialized training and certifications in lie- and truthfulness-detection, as well as in conflict resolution within organizations.
Her work in these areas has appeared in several scientific journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. She was also a contributor to the books, Leadership at the Crossroads: Psychology and Leadership and The Handbook of Organizational and Managerial Wisdom, as well as an editor of one of the seminal scientific books on wisdom, Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives. Her work has been mentioned in mainstream publications from The New York Times to De Volkskrant (Netherlands).
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Jordan was an Associate Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands and a post-doctoral fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and Tuck School of Business in the United States.
Professor Jordan also served as a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. Professor Jordan received her doctoral degree and two masters degrees (Masters of Philosophy and Masters of Science in Psychology) from Yale University (United States). She is a member of the editorial board of the journals Leadership Quarterly and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Benoît Leleux is recognized as a leading specialist in entrepreneurship, venture capital, private equity, and corporate venturing, particularly in emerging markets, and is the winner of numerous case writing awards in…

Benoît Leleux is recognized as a leading specialist in entrepreneurship, venture capital, private equity, and corporate venturing, particularly in emerging markets, and is the winner of numerous case writing awards in categories relating to these topics.
His recent research and case writing activities have focused on sustainability as a source of entrepreneurial opportunities, and how entrepreneurs incorporate values into their projects for greater impact, as well as novel forms of financing for early and late-stage opportunities, from search funds to affinity financing, and innovative business models for corporate venturing such as open accelerators, venture clienting and corporate VC partnering.
He is the author of Winning Sustainability Strategies: Finding Purpose, Driving Innovation and Executing Change, published in 2019, which serves as the conceptual framework for a five-week IMD online course, Winning Sustainability Strategies (WSS), which he directs. The program targets general managers and executives in charge of sustainability efforts, equipping them with the tools required to analyze their firms’ sustainability footprint, investigate their materiality matrix, design an impactful transformation gameplan, and follow it through with proper metrics and communication strategy. The program highlights how to build solid business cases for sustainability strategies as a prerequisite to gain traction and ultimately achieve impact. He is also Co-Director of the Foundations for Business Leadership (FBL) program.
Leleux has published several other books, including Private Equity 4.0: Reinventing Value Creation, Investing Private Capital in Emerging and Frontier Market SMEs[AD1] , Nurturing Science-Based Startups: An International Case Perspective, From Microfinance to Small Business Finance and A European Casebook on Entrepreneurship and New Ventures.
In addition, he is a world-leading case writer and has consistently been ranked among The Case Centre’s best-selling case authors in the world. He has authored more than 30 award-winning cases at the crossroads of entrepreneurship, venture financing, emerging markets, and family business, most recently “Lionheart Farms (Philippines) and the tree of life”, winner of the 2022 HEC Montreal CSR Challenge Case Writing Competition, “Brown-Forman: Nothing better in the market”, which won the 2021 EFMD Case Writing Award in the Family Business category, and “EcoAlf: Because there is no planet B”, winner of the prestigious 2020 John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition.
He is also actively involved in numerous startups and venture capital and private equity funds as a board member, advisor or in other capacities.
Leleux has been at IMD since 1999, serving as Director of the MBA program from 2006 to 2008 and Director of Research and Development from 2004 to 2008. He was previously Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD and Zubillaga Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Prior to his academic career, he was the head of corporate venturing for a leading agribusiness conglomerate in Southeast Asia.
Selected publications
Lionheart Farms (Philippines) and the tree of life (IMD, 2022)
Brown-Forman: Nothing better in the market (IMD, 2021)
Ecoalf: Because there is no planet B (IMD, 2020)
Winning Sustainability Strategies: Finding Purpose, Driving Innovation and Executing Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
Private Equity 4.0: Reinventing Value Creation (John Wiley & Sons, 2015)
Investing Private Capital in Emerging and Frontier Market SMEs (IFC, 2009)
Nurturing Science-Based Startups: An International Case Perspective (Springer Verlag, 2008)
From Microfinance to Small Business Finance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
A European Casebook on Entrepreneurship and New Ventures (Prentice Hall, 1996).
Recognition
Winner of HEC Montreal CSR Challenge Case Writing Competition (2022)
Winner of EFMD Case Writing Competition Award (2021)
Named on Case Centre list of best-selling case authors (2015/16 to 2020/21)
John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition winner (2020)
Education
MSc (Agricultural Engineering)
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
MEd (Natural Sciences)
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
MBA (International Management)
Virginia Tech
PhD (Corporate Finance and Venture Capital)
INSEAD

Jean-François Manzoni is the President of IMD, where he also serves as the Nestlé Professor.
His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations…

Jean-François Manzoni is the President of IMD, where he also serves as the Nestlé Professor.
His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations and corporate governance.
At the organisational level, Professor Manzoni studies the content of change (including the use of levers such as strategy, structure and systems), the management of the change process and the role of leaders therein. His work in this area has appeared in several books, articles and over 30 cases, four of which received Case of the Year Awards from the European Foundation for Management Development or the European Case Clearing House. He also acted as content expert in the development of a ground-breaking computer-based change management simulation, the Change Pro Simulation®.
At the individual level, Professor Manzoni studies how leaders can create a high-performance work environment and what they can do to modify their leadership style in that direction. This stream of research has led to several articles and a book entitled The Set-Up to Fail Syndrome: How good managers cause great people to fail (with Jean-Louis Barsoux). This book, which is built on Manzoni's and Barsoux's initial Harvard Business Review article introducing the term "set-up-to-fail syndrome", received two Book of the Year awards and is being discussed in undergraduate, MBA and executive development programs all over the world.
On the corporate governance side, Professor Manzoni focuses on interpersonal dynamics within the Boardroom and between management and the Board. Ongoing research examining the impact of interpersonal dynamics on increasingly diverse Boards of Directors received the Research Award on Leadership & Corporate Governance from the Association of Executive Search Consultants. A Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Directors, Professor Manzoni is currently serving on the Board of Keppel Corp., an international diversified group listed on the Singapore stock exchange, and previously served on the Boards of Singapore's Civil Service College and of AACSB International, the world's largest business education alliance.
A citizen of Canada and France, Professor Manzoni received his Doctorate from Harvard Business School. He had earlier graduated from l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montréal and worked with Ernst and Young in Montreal before receiving an MBA from McGill University.
Prior to re-joining IMD in 2016, Professor Manzoni had served on the IMD faculty between 2004 and 2010. He also previously served on the faculty of INSEAD, in Singapore and in Fontainebleau. While at INSEAD he founded and directed for four years the PwC Research Initiative on High Performance Organizations. He later directed the Global Leadership Centre supporting the school's leadership-related coaching, teaching and research activities throughout the world
The recipient of several awards for excellence in teaching, Professor Manzoni is a frequent keynote speaker. He also performed consulting, top management team support and leadership development work for several international organisations, which has led him to work in more than thirty countries over the years.
He currently serves or served on several International Advisory Panels, including Digital Switzerland, Singapore's Public Service Division and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA).

Joachim Schwass is Professor Emeritus of Family Business at IMD and founder of the IMD Global Family Business Center.
He has taught Family Business and Entrepreneurship with a main focus on generational and owner related…

Joachim Schwass is Professor Emeritus of Family Business at IMD and founder of the IMD Global Family Business Center.
He has taught Family Business and Entrepreneurship with a main focus on generational and owner related issues. He has lectured and conducted Family Business programs around the globe, and advised many of globally leading family businesses.
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Schwass was Managing Director of several companies which were part of his own family's business. He was managing industrial manufacturing businesses in Australia and USA as well as an international trading business in Switzerland. He started up several international businesses.
Educated in Germany, France and Switzerland, Professor Joachim Schwass attended graduate studies at Technische Universität Berlin and Université de Fribourg where he obtained a Lic rer pol and a Dr rer pol.
His book “Wise Growth Strategies in Leading Family Businesses” was published in 2005, in German in 2007, in Spanish in 2008, in Mandarin in 2012 and in Japanese in 2015. He is the lead author of "Wise Wealth", which was published in 2010, and in Mandarin in 2013. He is the lead author of “Wise Family Business, Family Identity Steering Brand Success”, which was published in 2016.
He directed the Annual Distinguished Family Business Award for 10 years. He was Executive Director of the Family Business Network (FBN) for 10 years and served on the Board until 2010.

Paul Strebel works with boards of directors and top management teams as an educator and advisor on strategic vision and the resolution of boardroom conflicts. In addition to personal experience as a board director, he…

Paul Strebel works with boards of directors and top management teams as an educator and advisor on strategic vision and the resolution of boardroom conflicts. In addition to personal experience as a board director, he has facilitated interactive workshops and seminars on best in-class boards and strategic breakthroughs for multinationals in Europe, U.S., South Africa, the Middle East and S.E. Asia.
He is the originator of several managerial frameworks:
Outpacing Business Strategies (developed together with Xavier Gilbert): Companies shouldn’t opt exclusively for low delivered cost, or high perceived value, but rather deploy them in sequence to drive the industry’s evolution and beat the competition.
Employee Compacts: To make organizational change effective, management must understand why employees resist change, take account of the forces of change and resistance and offer employees correspondingly tailored compacts.
Contingent Governance: Board directors are more effective when they are aware of the four basic roles of the board that reflect support and control, and how the board should shift focus between the roles to deal with internal and external challenges.
Redefined Stakeholder Capitalism: Executives can reconcile shareholders with other stakeholders, by focusing rigorously on creating long-term shareholder value, based on win-win initiatives with value creating stakeholders, while avoiding the value-destroying traps and ESG risks associated with others.
Professor Strebel has twice received the Award for Research on Leadership from the Association of Executive Search Consultants and has won several case study awards from the European Foundation for Management Development. He has published articles in the MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Long Range Planning, among numerous others and has contributed on governance issues to the business press.
Paul Strebel's books include, Breakpoints: How Managers Exploit Radical Business Change (Harvard Business School Press); The Change Pact: Building Commitment to Ongoing Change (FT Prentice Hall); Trajectory Management: Leading a Business over Time (Wiley); Smart Big Moves: The Story Behind Strategic Breakthroughs (FT Prentice Hall). He is the co-editor of IMD's guidebook on Mastering Executive Education: How to Combine Content with Context and Emotion (FT Prentice Hall)
Professor Strebel was IMD’s first Director of Research, held the Sandoz Family Foundation Chair in Strategic Change Management, sponsored the introduction of IMD’s Executive MBA program, directed several of IMD’s open and company-specific executive development programs, and developed the IMD online program, Strategic Thinking.
Prior to joining IMEDE, one of the two founding institutes of IMD, he was Chairman of the Finance and Economics Group at the State University of New York in Binghamton, Director of the MBA Program at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and on the financial staff of W.R. Grace & Co.
He was educated at the University of Cape Town where he was awarded a Master of Science degree for a thesis in nuclear chemistry, graduated from Columbia University in New York with an MBA specializing in finance, and received his doctorate with a dissertation in chemical physics from Princeton University.

Francisco Szekely is Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Sustainability at IMD.
His work contributes to the understanding of the interrelationships between the emergence of new social, economic and environmental trends as…

Francisco Szekely is Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Sustainability at IMD.
His work contributes to the understanding of the interrelationships between the emergence of new social, economic and environmental trends as well as the development of long-term, sustainable business strategies. His research explores how companies can include sustainability as a key element of their business strategy; the link between sustainability and business performance; high performance leadership; the development of the leadership required by organizations to sustain long-term business performance over time, as well as the development and expectations of generations “Y" and "Next."
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Szekely served on the faculties of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, MIT, the International Academy of the Environment in Geneva, Switzerland and the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, Germany where he taught sustainable development and responsible leadership. Additionally, he has worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company managing clients in Mexico, the US and Holland and has served as a Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources for the Mexican government. Most recently, Professor Szekely was Professor of Business Sustainability and Director of the Center for Responsible Business and Sustainability at the School of Management of the University of Texas at Dallas.
He is the author of seven books, numerous articles and many case studies and is the recipient of the “2011 International Award on the Hot Topic Case Writing” from the European Case Clearing House (ECCH). His works have been published in the European Management Journal, Environmental Assessment Review (MIT), and other refereed journals.
Professor Szekely holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, an M.Sc in Engineering from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and an M.Sc in Technology & Human Affairs and a Ph.D in Environmental Sciences and Economics from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Named one of the top business school professors globally by Poets & Quants, which included her on its 'Best 40 under 40' list in 2021, Ina Toegel's work focuses on how to build and sustain high-performance teams. She…

Named one of the top business school professors globally by Poets & Quants, which included her on its 'Best 40 under 40' list in 2021, Ina Toegel's work focuses on how to build and sustain high-performance teams. She started her career as an economist at the World Bank – an atypical background which means she adopts an interdisciplinary approach in her work. Meanwhile, her strong interest in the creative industries inspires her to incorporate interactive tools from the fields of film, sports, music, and the arts in her teaching.
Toegel says teams play a crucial role as vehicles for change in organizations seeking to make major transformations. Her approach when engaging with companies is to work with project teams or individual units in an agile way – looking at the individual make-up of the team, dynamics within the team, and how these relationships are embedded in the organizational context. Much of her work involves leading organizational change and aligning organizational culture with strategic priorities.
She is also keen on leveraging technology to enable executives to develop new ways of working, communicating, and collaborating. She uses virtual reality to explore how teams improve over time, and is investigating how AI can be used to recognize emotions – as well as its implications for an organization's business, how it structures its operations, and how it works with customers.
She has led and taught on customized leadership programs for a wide range of organizations, including Hilti, Pirelli, Tetra Pak, Beiersdorf, Société Générale, DNB, DENSO, Vontobel, Buehler, Legrand, UEFA, MANE, Siam Commercial Bank, Bank of Communications, Bayer, Electrolux, ASSA ABLOY, T-Systems, Carlsberg, JTI, Hydro, and Tenaris.
She also leads IMD's Teams Reimagined open program and the culture transformation stream of its MBA and EMBA courses.
Poets & Quants said her inclusion on its 'Best 40 under 40' list was a recognition of her structured and inspirational approach to working with team dynamics and organizational culture transformation. She received nearly 100 nominations for the honor, making her one of the most nominated professors in its history. Participants, alumni, and faculty colleagues who nominated her praised her energetic style and ability to get people thinking, with one describing her as "our Socrates".
She is also a member of the Academy of Management and of the Strategic Management Society, and she presents at the Organizational Development and Change division during the Academy of Management's Annual Meeting.
Prior to joining IMD in 2015, Toegel taught corporate strategy at the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne. In her previous role at the World Bank, she was involved in projects on structuring public-private partnerships in the transport, energy, and waste sectors in southeast Europe.
Selected publications
Why every team needs a Ringo (I by IMD, 2021)
Secrecy in practice: How middle managers promote strategic initiatives behind the scenes (Organization Studies, 2021)
The role of inclusion in responsible global leadership (Routledge, 2020)
Pep (Guardiola) talks – tapping into collective emotions (IMD, 2020)
How to beat gender stereotypes: Learn, speak up and react (World Economic Forum, 2019)
Thrive as an LGBT+ executive or ally ([email protected], 2019)
How to create a high-performance team: Top tips for better collaboration (HR Future, 2018)
How to create a high-performance team (Forbes, 2018)
Recognition
Named on Poets & Quants 'Best 40 under 40' list of the world’s leading business school professors (2021)
Education
BA (Economics)
Columbia University, New York
MSc (Management Research)
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
PhD (Strategic Management)
INSEAD

Omar Toulan is Professor of Strategy and International Management and the Dean of the MBA program at IMD. Professor Toulan's areas of expertise include strategic management, international business, growth strategies, and…

Omar Toulan is Professor of Strategy and International Management and the Dean of the MBA program at IMD. Professor Toulan's areas of expertise include strategic management, international business, growth strategies, and managing the multinational. Among his areas of research are offshoring and outsourcing, global account management, emerging market multinationals, and the impact of the digital disruption on the retail sector. His research has appeared in a variety of academic and practitioner oriented journals including Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, California Management Review, Industrial and Corporate Change, Emerging Markets Review, and Journal of Latin American Studies.
Before joining IMD, Dr. Toulan spent 19 years at McGill University in Canada where he was a tenured professor and also served as Associate Dean Academic and Masters Programs of the business school, overseeing all faculty and leading the introduction and redesign of various masters programs. He has also spent time as a Visiting Professor at London Business School, INSEAD, Imperial College, Stockholm School of Economics, and Universidad Torcuato di Tella. He has been awarded various research and teaching grants, including a Teaching Chair from the Quebec Government. He has given executive seminars extensively not only in Europe and North America but also Latin America and Japan.
Prior to entering academia, Professor Toulan worked as a management consultant for McKinsey and Company in its New York office, as well as at its Global Institute in Washington, D.C. He has also worked as a researcher at the US President's Council of Economic Advisers.
Professor Toulan received his undergraduate degree in International Economics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and went on to complete his PhD in Strategy at the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors…

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors under the age of 40 in 2022 and included in Family Capital’s Top 100 Family Business Influencers list in both 2020 and 2022.
He works with families, owners, boards, and executives of family enterprises and family offices around the world, focusing on transformations, governance, ownership and leadership succession, wealth management, fostering entrepreneurialism and innovation within the system, and on establishing professional boards and leadership teams. He does so through major transformation journeys that include custom programs, advisory work, and open programs, as well as tailored diagnostics and workshops.
The IMD Global Family Business Center aims to be the world's leading center of excellence in the domain, and to act as a trusted learning partner for global enterprising families and a safe space where they can go for neutral advice and support. Its mission is to help enterprising families ensure family unity and business success across generations while also having a positive impact on society.
Vogel says long-term success and unity depend on having a healthy family enterprise ecosystem, so this requires a holistic approach covering the legacy family business, any new businesses, the family office and investment activities, and all aspects of what he calls “total family wealth” – human, social, financial and reputational capital.
He is Director of a suite of programs offered by the Center – Leading the Family Business (LFB), which was launched in 1988 as the world's first family business program, Navigating your Family Enterprise into the future (NFE), and Leading the Family Office (LFO).
Helping with the establishment of family offices accounts for a growing share of the Center's work, with many families now looking to transition from being a family in business to managing their private wealth through a family office structure. It is therefore working on the development of an advanced LFO program, which will act as a certification program for aspiring family officers.
Vogel is also Director of the IMD Global Family Business Award, which recognizes excellence in the art of building and managing a successful, sustainable and well-governed family-owned enterprise. The award was established in 1996 and is now seen as the most sought-after prize in the field of family business.
In addition, he is co-author of the award-winning book Family Philanthropy Navigator, the first in a planned trilogy on family businesses. The book will be followed by Family Office Navigator in 2022 and Family Enterprise Navigator in 2024.
Family Philanthropy Navigator, which offers a step-by-step guide that philanthropic families can use as they seek to make a real difference through their giving, earned praise from Beatrice Fihn, winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and Executive Director of ICAN, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal in 2021.
Vogel has published articles in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has written several books and book chapters as well as scientific and practitioner-oriented reports. His work is frequently referenced by leading newspapers and other media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Financial Times, and TechCrunch.
He is a regular conference speaker and has appeared at TEDxLausanne, the Global Economic Symposium, the Family Matters Forum, the Family Business Network Global Summit, the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, and the St. Gallen Symposium, among others.
He is also an Associate Partner of the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, and an alumnus of the Forum’s Global Shapers Community.
Before joining IMD in 2017, he served as Director of Custom Programs and Business Development at the Executive School of University of St. Gallen. He was previously Assistant Professor of Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen, as well as Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Swiss Start-up Monitor Foundation.
Before embarking on his academic career, Vogel was an entrepreneur. He launched several ventures in the software segment and remains Chairman of the investment firm Delta Venture Partners.
Selected publications
Family Office Navigator (IMD, 2022)
The Sika takeover battle (IMD, 2021)
Family Philanthropy Navigator (IMD, 2020)
From venture idea to venture opportunity (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2017)
Recognition
Named on Poets&Quants Best 40 under 40 list of leading business school professors (2022)
Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner (2021)
Named on Family Capital’s list of Top 100 Family Business Influencers (2020 and 2022)
Education
BSc (Mechanical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
MSc (Biomedical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
PhD (Entrepreneurship)
EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)
With sincere thanks to Wild Group and Debiopharm
We are very fortunate to benefit from two Chairs dedicated to the study and support of family businesses.

The Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses has been instrumental in funding research and educational activities at the Center since 2001.
The purpose of this Chair is the exploration of the management needs of family-…

The Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses has been instrumental in funding research and educational activities at the Center since 2001.
The purpose of this Chair is the exploration of the management needs of family-held businesses and strategic partnerships in this field. Another of its aims is the furthering of entrepreneurial culture throughout business owning families and enterprising families.
The Chair was donated by Hans-Peter Wild, former owner of Wild Flavors (which he sold to ADM in 2014) and current owner and chairman of the Wild Group and the Capri-Sun Group (which includes the world-famous Capri Sun fruit juice brand.)
IMD is extremely grateful to Dr. Wild for his continued support of family business research and education. His generosity and commitment help to ensure that IMD remains a world pioneer in this fascinating field.
Over the past 20 years prestigious family business faculty were appointed to the Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses and all have delivered premium programs and published cutting-edge research and insights in family business, contributing significantly to both the reach and reputation the Center continues to enjoy today.
As of 2001, Professor John Ward held the Wild Group Chair on Family Businesses. His teaching and research interests are in family enterprise continuity, governance, philanthropy, and sustainable strategy. Professor Ward has authored several books including the best-selling "Keeping the Family Business Healthy", "Creating Effective Boards for Private Enterprises", "Strategic Planning for the Family Business", "Perpetuating the Family Business", as well as the "Family Business Leadership Series", several cases, and numerous articles.
In 2013, Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez was appointed Wild Group Professor of Family Business. Her research as Wild Group Chair include a specific focus on strategic alliances among privately-owned companies as well as between public and private firms. In particular it investigates how to preserve key drivers of family business performance – values and corporate culture - during merger times and beyond. Professor Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez has authored several books: "Governance in Family Enterprises, Maximizing Economic and Emotional Success", "A Woman's Place, The Crucial Roles of Women in Family Business", "Sharing Wisdom, Building Values, Letters from Family Business Owners to Their Successors ", "Family Business, Key Issues", "Why Me? Wealth: Creating, Receiving and Passing It On", "Who, Me? Family Business Succession. A Practical Guide for the Next Generation".
In 2020, IMD appoints family business expert Alfredo De Massis to spearhead research within the Wild Group Chair at IMD. Alfredo’s research focuses on the management, governance and behavioral aspects of family enterprises and how to ensure their prosperity across generations. He has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in strategic decision-making, and manage the paradox of tradition and innovation.

The Debiopharm Chair for Family Philanthropy aims to increase the social and financial impact of family giving as well as to develop best practices in family philanthropy. Another of its aims is to leverage…

The Debiopharm Chair for Family Philanthropy aims to increase the social and financial impact of family giving as well as to develop best practices in family philanthropy. Another of its aims is to leverage philanthropy as a catalyst for the transmission of family values across generations, branches and nationalities.
The Chair was donated in 2016 by Thierry Mauvernay, President and Delegate of the Board of Debiopharm Group. Read more

IMD was the birthplace of family business education in 1988.
We are forever indebted to Frank Tilley, former executive-in-residence, who identified family business as a field IMD ought to be active in, and to Professor Alden Lank, the first faculty member to lead the initiative.
Professors John Davis, Ivan Lansberg and John Ward were instrumental in launching the first Leading the Family Business (LFB) program in 1988. Dr. Stephan Schmidheiny underwrote the pilot study.
The IMD Global Family Business Award was launched in 1996, with The Lego Group, the first of many prestigious winners over the years. The award has continued to grow in reputation, promoting the indispensable role that family businesses play in the global economy.
LFB continues to be an enormous success, generating much interest from around the world. The subsequent demand for custom programs (tailor-made for specific family business needs) has increased steadily and, in 2004, after welcoming more than 400 families from over 40 countries, we celebrated the 1,000th family business participant milestone.
In 2008, the 20th anniversary of family business research and education at IMD was marked with the presence of Warren Buffett, who engaged openly with faculty and families alike. In 2009, the Biennial Family Business Forum was introduced as well as the first program specifically for Chinese family businesses.
The IMD Global Family Business Center, in its current form, was officially inaugurated in 2011. Growing demand saw the welcome introduction of a new program: Leading the Family Office (LFO) in 2013.
In 2019, the IMD-Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award was launched, celebrating and rewarding effort, performance and progress in the field of sustainability.
In September 2019, Professor Peter Vogel took over the directorship of the Global Family Business Center. Before him, prestigious family business faculty have led IMD’s family business initiatives over the years, including Joachim Schwass, Denise Rouvinez. All have delivered premium programs and published cutting-edge research and insights in family business, contributing significantly to both the reach and reputation that the Center continues to enjoy today.
The story continues...

2022 POETS & QUANTS BEST 40 UNDER 40 MBA PROFESSORS
Peter Vogel selected > read more
2022 TWO IMD EXPERTS IN TOP 100 FAMILY BUSINESS INFLUENCERS LIST
> read more
2022 INTERNATIONAL FAMILY ENTERPRISE RESEARCH ACADEMY (IFERA) AWARDS
- BEST PAPER AWARD: "Welcome or not? A mixed methods study on artificial intelligence technologies in family-influenced firms" by Jonas Soluk, Ivan Miroshnychenko and Satish Nambisan.
- Best Reviewer Award: Ivan Miroshnychenko nominated
2022 EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT (EURAM) AWARDS
- BEST PAPER AWARD on “Management Challenges in Family Business”: “Artificial intelligence adoption in family-influenced firms: A social capital perspective” by Jonas Soluk, Ivan Miroshnychenko and Satish Nambisan.
2022 FAMILY FIRM INSTITUTE INTERNATIONAL AWARD (FFI) AWARD
- BEST UNPUBLISHED RESEARCH PAPER: “Conflict Origin and Management Mechanisms in Family Firms” by Marco Mismetti, Cristina Bettinelli, and Alfredo De Massis.
- HONORABLE MENTION: “The global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on corporate performance of family and nonfamily firms” by Ivan Miroshnychenko, Giorgio Vocalelli, Alfredo De Massis, Stefano Grassi, and Francesco Ravazzolo.
2021 FAMILY FIRM INSTITUE INTERNATIONAL AWARD (FFI)
- The Center being recognized for its major contributions to education, research, and outreach > read more
2021 INTERNATIONAL FAMILY ENTERPRISE RESEARCH ACADEMY (IFERA) AWARDS
- BEST TEACHING CASE STUDY: "Brown-Forman: nothing better in the market" by Marta Widz, Marc Chauvet under the supervision of Benoit Leleux
- BEST PAPER ON GENDER DIVERSITY: "Toward a reconciliation of discrepant perspectives on debt in female led firms" by Alfredo De Massis, Fernando Muñoz-Bullón, María José Sánchez-Bueno, Pilar Velasco and Silvio Vismara.
- BEST PAPER ON CONFERENCE THEME: "Family Business and the Natural Environment" by Ivan Miroshnychenko, Danny Miller, Alfredo De Massis, and Isabel Le-Breton-Miller.
2021 FAMILY AWARD at the Family Enterprise Research Conference (FERC)
- BEST RESEACH ON DIVERSITY: "Women’s leadership and leverage decisions: Exploring the nature of family firms and their governance,” co-authored with Fernando Muñoz-Bullón, María José Sánchez-Bueno, Pilar Velasco and Silvio Vismara.
2021 AXIOM BUSINESS BOOK AWARD
- SILVER MEDALin the category Philanthropy/Non-profit/Sustainability: for the book Family philanthropy navigator: The inspirational guide for philanthropic families on their giving journey by Peter Vogel, Etienne Eichenberger and Malgorzata Kurak.
2021 FAMILY FIRM INSTITUE INTERNATIONAL AWARD (FFI)
- Ivan Miroshnychenko received the Family Business Review Excellent Reviewer Award 2021
2020 TWO IMD EXPERTS IN TOP 100 FAMILY BUSINESS INFLUENCERS LIST
> read more
The Center offers pioneering research, executive education and advisory services that bring together a unique team.

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors…

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors under the age of 40 in 2022 and included in Family Capital’s Top 100 Family Business Influencers list in both 2020 and 2022.
He works with families, owners, boards, and executives of family enterprises and family offices around the world, focusing on transformations, governance, ownership and leadership succession, wealth management, fostering entrepreneurialism and innovation within the system, and on establishing professional boards and leadership teams. He does so through major transformation journeys that include custom programs, advisory work, and open programs, as well as tailored diagnostics and workshops.
The IMD Global Family Business Center aims to be the world's leading center of excellence in the domain, and to act as a trusted learning partner for global enterprising families and a safe space where they can go for neutral advice and support. Its mission is to help enterprising families ensure family unity and business success across generations while also having a positive impact on society.
Vogel says long-term success and unity depend on having a healthy family enterprise ecosystem, so this requires a holistic approach covering the legacy family business, any new businesses, the family office and investment activities, and all aspects of what he calls “total family wealth” – human, social, financial and reputational capital.
He is Director of a suite of programs offered by the Center – Leading the Family Business (LFB), which was launched in 1988 as the world's first family business program, Navigating your Family Enterprise into the future (NFE), and Leading the Family Office (LFO).
Helping with the establishment of family offices accounts for a growing share of the Center's work, with many families now looking to transition from being a family in business to managing their private wealth through a family office structure. It is therefore working on the development of an advanced LFO program, which will act as a certification program for aspiring family officers.
Vogel is also Director of the IMD Global Family Business Award, which recognizes excellence in the art of building and managing a successful, sustainable and well-governed family-owned enterprise. The award was established in 1996 and is now seen as the most sought-after prize in the field of family business.
In addition, he is co-author of the award-winning book Family Philanthropy Navigator, the first in a planned trilogy on family businesses. The book will be followed by Family Office Navigator in 2022 and Family Enterprise Navigator in 2024.
Family Philanthropy Navigator, which offers a step-by-step guide that philanthropic families can use as they seek to make a real difference through their giving, earned praise from Beatrice Fihn, winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and Executive Director of ICAN, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal in 2021.
Vogel has published articles in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has written several books and book chapters as well as scientific and practitioner-oriented reports. His work is frequently referenced by leading newspapers and other media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Financial Times, and TechCrunch.
He is a regular conference speaker and has appeared at TEDxLausanne, the Global Economic Symposium, the Family Matters Forum, the Family Business Network Global Summit, the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, and the St. Gallen Symposium, among others.
He is also an Associate Partner of the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, and an alumnus of the Forum’s Global Shapers Community.
Before joining IMD in 2017, he served as Director of Custom Programs and Business Development at the Executive School of University of St. Gallen. He was previously Assistant Professor of Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen, as well as Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Swiss Start-up Monitor Foundation.
Before embarking on his academic career, Vogel was an entrepreneur. He launched several ventures in the software segment and remains Chairman of the investment firm Delta Venture Partners.
Selected publications
Family Office Navigator (IMD, 2022)
The Sika takeover battle (IMD, 2021)
Family Philanthropy Navigator (IMD, 2020)
From venture idea to venture opportunity (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2017)
Recognition
Named on Poets&Quants Best 40 under 40 list of leading business school professors (2022)
Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner (2021)
Named on Family Capital’s list of Top 100 Family Business Influencers (2020 and 2022)
Education
BSc (Mechanical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
MSc (Biomedical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
PhD (Entrepreneurship)
EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in…

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in strategic decision making and manage the paradox of tradition and innovation. At IMD he provides intellectual contributions by working on collaboration and scientific advisory activities within the Wild Group Chair in Family Business.
De Massis is one of the world's leading family business academics. In February 2022 he was included in Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list for his thought leadership in the family business field. In 2020 he was ranked as the most influential and productive author of the decade in the family business research field in a bibliometric study published in the European Journal of Family Business, and in 2015 Family Capital named him as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors.
His research focuses on the management, governance and behavioral aspects of family enterprises and how to ensure their prosperity across generations. His work examines how they align economic goals with other objectives such as maintaining family harmony and control of the business, creating jobs for the next generation, succession planning, and nurturing the reputation of the family in its community. He shows that successful family firms excel at leveraging their tradition, history, and heritage as strategic resources to enable innovation.
He also works closely with large and small businesses in several countries to help them build rigorous and reliable knowledge to promote long-term prosperity across generations. He recently helped companies and institutions including the UK government to address the new challenges that COVID-19 created for family firms, such as the need for rapid and unexpected succession, the dehumanization of relationships due to remote working, the effects of emotional vulnerabilities, and the salience of patrimonial and liquidity issues for families in business.
De Massis' prolific writings include seven books, notably the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business and Family Business Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, and more than 150 articles in leading academic and professional journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Academy of Management Perspectives, California Management Review, Family Business Review, Small Business Economics, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Research Policy and Global Strategy Journal.
Due to its economic and practical relevance, his research has been featured in numerous media outlets including the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Il Sole 24 Ore, and RAI. He is also an in-demand public speaker and is regularly invited to give keynote speeches at conferences, lectures to professional and academic audiences, and media interviews.
He also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Board and member of the steering committee of FA.B.R.I., [AD1] a non-profit association dedicated to Italian family enterprises, as Co-Director and Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Observatory on Italian Family Offices, and as member of the Scientific Board of the Italian Family Officer Association (AIFO). In addition, he has been Chair of the Strategic Interest Group on Family Business Research at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Family Business (IFB). He was previously Chairman of the European Leadership Council and a member of the Global Board of the STEP Project for Family Enterprising founded by Babson College.
In addition to his role at IMD, De Massis remains Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Business at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy, where he founded the Unibz Centre for Family Business Management, and he continues to support family business research projects at Lancaster University Management School’s Centre for Family Business in the UK, which he previously directed. He formerly served as a professor at the University of Bergamo, where he co-founded the Center for Young and Family Enterprise.
He is also Editor of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and Associate Editor of Family Business Review, two prestigious and influential journals in the field of family business, and Editor of FamilyBusiness.org, a US social media platform dedicated to sharing learning resources with family business practitioners.
He serves on the editorial boards of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Family Business Strategy, and has been guest editor of more than 20 leading journals’ special issues on family business topics.
Before embarking on his academic career, De Massis worked as a manager for SCS Consulting, a strategy consultant at Accenture, and as a financial analyst at the Italian Stock Exchange.
Selected publications
Are narcissistic CEOs good or bad for family firm innovation? (Human Relations, 2022)
Mining the past: History scripting strategies and competitive advantage in a family business (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2022)
Entrepreneurial by design: How organizational design affects family and nonfamily firms’ opportunity exploitation (Journal of Management Studies, 2020)
Managing the tradition and innovation paradox in family firms: A family imprinting perspective (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2019)
Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business (Edward Elgar, 2020)
Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors (Journal of Business Venturing, 2018)
Financial wealth, socioemotional wealth and IPO underpricing in family firms: A two-stage gamble model (Academy of Management Journal, 2018)
Innovation through tradition: Lessons from innovative family businesses and directions for future research (Academy of Management Perspectives, 2016)
Recognition
Named on Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list (2022)
Ranked as most influential and productive family business author of the decade (2020)
Named by Family Capital as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors (2015)
Education
Master of Science (Management Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano
PhD (Management, Economics, and Industrial Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano

Mario Marconi is senior advisor and partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise, a highly specialized international advisory firm serving family enterprises.
Based in Zurich, Mr. Marconi advises…

Mario Marconi is senior advisor and partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise, a highly specialized international advisory firm serving family enterprises.
Based in Zurich, Mr. Marconi advises enterprising families globally on strategies for long-term success, governance, succession transitions, wealth regeneration, wealth transfer, family office, impact investing, and family philanthropy. With a background in wealth management, investment banking, and sustainable philanthropy, his focus is helping families with their financial strategies, be it for their private wealth or business needs. His work aims at establishing the best financial strategies for families in order to reach their long-term objectives as well as supporting them in designing the right wealth structure and setup. He also advises family offices, working with families to review and design their existing or desired structure.
In addition, Mr. Marconi speaks on the topics of sustainability and philanthropy, and advises a number of ventures in the philanthropic and impact investing space. He has written a number of articles on family philanthropy and investing, including three prominent pieces: “Wealth Can Deliver More Than Financial Returns” (Euromoney, 2014); “SME Impact Investing in Frontier Markets: A Novel Value Proposition for Private Investors” (Euromoney, 2013); and “Banks Need to Play a Larger Role in Social Good” (Forbes, 2012).
Mr. Marconi comes out of the financial services industry. For more than 25 years, he held executive positions at UBS where he grew and led multiple areas of the private bank. As the Global Head of the UHNW Family Services Group, Mr. Marconi built UBS’ holistic wealth management area and established a number of services to help families manage all aspects of their wealth including succession planning, family office management, family governance, sustainable impact investing, and family philanthropy.
Mr. Marconi holds an M.B.A. from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Geneva. He is fluent in English, Italian, French, and German.

Ivan Miroshnychenko is Research Fellow & Term Research Professor at IMD’s Global Family Business Centre and Sustainability Initiative. Ivan holds a PhD in Management from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced…

Ivan Miroshnychenko is Research Fellow & Term Research Professor at IMD’s Global Family Business Centre and Sustainability Initiative. Ivan holds a PhD in Management from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Cum Laude) and an MSc in Management & Strategy (Merit) from the University of Sheffield.
He carries out research on economics and management of family business and sustainability. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Family Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Business Strategy & the Environment, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, R&D Management, and Journal of Cleaner Production, amongst others.
Ivan’s work has also received prestigious research awards and grants from various public funding bodies and private organizations, including the Academy of Management, International Family Enterprise Research Academy, the Family Firm Institute, the Swedish Institute, Study Foundation of the Berlin House of Representatives, and the Südtiroler Sparkasse Foundation.

Matthew develops and manages the relationships with business owning families, family offices and strategic partners. He oversees the design and delivery of learning journeys as well as operations within the center.
A…

Matthew develops and manages the relationships with business owning families, family offices and strategic partners. He oversees the design and delivery of learning journeys as well as operations within the center.
A graduate of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), Matthew has gained solid management experience in the health and leisure industry, in FinTech and more recently in education. Prior to joining IMD in 2015, Matthew was the Head of Partnerships and directed the dynamic and far-reaching alumni network at EHL.
He has strong interpersonal, communication and management skills as well as a very positive outlook. Matthew is married, has two children, an English bulldog, is a keen sportman and coaches football.

Malgorzata earned her Ph.D. in Economics, Management and Organization from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain. She has an extensive research, business and teaching experience gained as Global Shaper…

Malgorzata earned her Ph.D. in Economics, Management and Organization from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain. She has an extensive research, business and teaching experience gained as Global Shaper of the WEF Geneva Hub, Visiting Fellow at Bruegel, Visiting Fellow at the University of Groningen, Co-Director at the Global Leadership Initiative (partnered with Rotary International and the United Nations), Secretary General at the Barcelona Debating Society, and Teaching Assistant at ESADE Business School.
Within her research, she focuses on family firms’ governance and management practices that allow them to translate their larger visions into workable strategies and explore their relation to philanthropy, innovation and performance. She is experienced in using data to examine the range of plausible explanations for discrepant findings and surprising patterns of relations.

Virginie coordinates and ensures the smooth running of center's activities. She manages various projects and initiatives including center's events, communication and the two Family Business awards (IMD Global Family…

Virginie coordinates and ensures the smooth running of center's activities. She manages various projects and initiatives including center's events, communication and the two Family Business awards (IMD Global Family Business Award and IMD-Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award).
Virginie joined IMD 20 years ago and worked in various departements including Program Operations, MBA International Consulting Project, Sustainability and CEO Center.
Prior to joining IMD, Virginie worked for Swissair mostly in sales, press and public relations and marketing.
Family businesses are highly complex. They must continuously align the interests of the family with the ownership and objectives of the business. They typically have a very long-term, values-based approach; each generation wanting to ensure the success of the business for the next.
Complicated and sensitive family, business, ownership and financial issues can often present a tough challenge for family businesses. Family conflicts can flare up over a lack of clarity on the evolving roles of family members or diverging business visions. These issues present risks to both the family and the business. We are committed to focusing on the characteristics and challenges unique to family businesses.
We do so with an incredible pool of faculty experts in their field.
Faculty team
teaching in family business programs

Sameh Abadir is a Professor of Leadership and Negotiation at IMD. Abadir's fields of expertise are negotiation, conflict management, crisis management, and leadership. Before his academic career, he served in the…

Sameh Abadir is a Professor of Leadership and Negotiation at IMD. Abadir's fields of expertise are negotiation, conflict management, crisis management, and leadership. Before his academic career, he served in the Egyptian Special Forces and was an executive at a large multinational, and his military and corporate experience brings a unique perspective to his teaching.
Abadir says everything is subject to negotiation in the modern business world, so negotiation skills are vital – but managers often fall into some common traps. These include being overoptimistic, overconfident, or arrogant, and going into negotiations believing that you have to reach a deal. People who assume they have to close a deal set themselves up for a poor deal, he argues. Another mistake is to think that negotiation is a zero-sum game in which one side wins and the other loses, which misses the point that the process is about increasing the size of the pie and can therefore have a win-win outcome. Some negotiators also make the error of believing that the other party is out to get them, whereas both sides are quite reasonably looking to create and capture value.
In crisis management situations, leaders need a team with a range of skills, including not just people who are innately smart but also those who have made the behavioral choice to be emotionally smart by being kind and humble. In crisis negotiations, he says, you need a team that’s able to combine being confident, humble, smart, and kind, all at the same time.
Abadir believes the role of a leader has changed fundamentally, and that those who fail to grasp this are likely to be under the erroneous illusion that they are in control. Vertical hierarchical organizational structures have given way to complex systems in which people are working in teams in different locations around the globe and communicating in a language that is not their mother tongue, so the old way of giving orders on the shop floor has gone. Leaders therefore have to accept that they cannot control everything and find a new way of managing.
Abadir advises companies on negotiations and runs negotiation workshops in English, French and Arabic. He has recently directed custom programs for Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Jerónimo Martins, ArcelorMittal, and Merck, and is Co-Director of IMD's signature Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) and Negotiating for Value Creation (NVC) open programs.
He is also Chairman of his family business, which is based in Egypt with operations across the Middle East and Africa.
Prior to joining IMD in 2018, he was an Adjunct Professor at INSEAD for 15 years. He was previously an executive at Sodexo, one of the world's largest multinational corporations, and served in the Egyptian Special Forces between 1985 and 1988.
Selected publications
Toolkit for strategic leading through a crisis (I by IMD, 2022)
Questions to ask as you prepare to negotiate a deal (I by IMD, 2022)
Negotiation techniques for a global dealmaking frenzy (I by IMD, 2021)
The two roles leaders must play in a crisis (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)
The Innovative Business School: Mentoring Today’s Leaders for Tomorrow’s Global Challenges (Routledge, 2020)
From safety, through sustainability to stewardship (FFI Practitioner, 2020)
Bicultural managers leading multicultural teams (International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 2020)
e-Negotiations: Networking and Cross-Cultural Business Transactions (Routledge, 2012)
Recognition
INSEAD Best Program Director award (2018)
INSEAD Best Professor award (2018)
Education
MBA
Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po)
PhD (Economics)
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Ben Bryant is a Professor of Leadership and Organization at IMD in Lausanne and the director of the IMD CEO Learning Center. He holds the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Chair for Responsible Leadership. Ben is a highly skilled…

Ben Bryant is a Professor of Leadership and Organization at IMD in Lausanne and the director of the IMD CEO Learning Center. He holds the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Chair for Responsible Leadership. Ben is a highly skilled educator, executive team coach, and speaker. He works with a wide range of CEOs and their executive teams and presents his research at many leading academic institutions.
Through IMD’s CEO Learning Center, Ben leads an experienced faculty team that creates learning events for senior executives in trusting environments. The Center leverages the collective and individual potential of leaders by helping them to learn new ways of working together and to unlearn unhelpful patterns of beliefs and behaviors.
For more than 20 years, Ben has accumulated extensive experience in the facilitation and development of senior executives at IMD Lausanne, London Business School, and the Australian Graduate School of Management. He has worked globally in Europe, the US, Asia and Australia for a wide range of leading companies including Oracle, LVMH, Daimler, Maersk, Adecco, Mars, British Telecom, GlaxoSmithKline, Zurich Financial Services, Standard Chartered Bank, Emirates Airlines, Mahindra, and Danish Broadcasting. He has also worked closely with numerous smaller entrepreneurial businesses.
Ben’s models and frameworks of leadership have been used in the development of top teams, senior and mid-level executives, and in the development of strategy, execution and change. His research into cultures of innovation has been used to guide organizations to generate new sources of value creation.
Ben frequently works with senior teams to help them build a climate of trust, openness, challenge and commitment. He is passionate about helping managers to reduce boundaries created by functional silos and national borders and to manage conflict and tension. His research also focuses on the reflective capabilities and the “mindfulness” of leaders in complex organizations and the capacity of leaders to to learn from experience and context.
Ben has a PhD in Organizational Change from the University of London (London Business School) as well as an MBA from the University of NSW and undergraduate degrees and diplomas in Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, History of Education, French Language Literature and Culture, Music, and the Humanities..

Professor Cossin is the founder and director of the IMD Global Board Center, the originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology and an advocate of Stewardship. He is the author and co-author of books…

Professor Cossin is the founder and director of the IMD Global Board Center, the originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology and an advocate of Stewardship. He is the author and co-author of books such as Inspiring Stewardship, book chapters (such as Governance Risk: A Guide for Investors) and many articles in the fields of governance, investments, risks and stewardship, several of which have obtained citations of excellence or other awards.
He works with owners, boards and senior leaders to provide the latest thinking on best-in-class governance, board effectiveness, the governance and selection of investments, board dynamics and strategy design. He favors an adaptive and interactive approach to finding distinctive solutions for organizations on a wide range of governance topics. His latest research focuses on stewardship, how we can foster organizations to have long-term positive social impact while creating economic value for all. His past research has dealt with optimizing governance in critical decision making, M&As and risks.
In his work with boards, Professor Cossin helps them enhance organizational performance through strategy involvement, best-in-class decision making, enhancing board culture and general governance (including board restructurings). As a clinician of governance excellence in many regions of the world, he is an advocate of adapting practices to the social, geopolitical, technological and economic transformation through distinctive solutions allowing for long term wealth creation.
He also looks at the latest approaches to risk issues. His work addresses not only technical risks (for which he uses his finance background) but also those arising from a number of different factors: psychological biases, social and cultural environments, technological changes (from AI to cybersecurity), strategic choices and/or from governance structure (for which he levers his long experience with many leading organizations).
Professor Cossin is an advisor and/or executive teacher with the United Nations, central banks of several countries, ministries as well as sovereign wealth funds and supranational organizations (European Central Bank, IFC, IOC), the boards or executive committees of corporations, financial institutions and funds in Europe, Asia, Americas, Africa and the Middle East. He gained significant experience working with the oil and gas industry (Schlumberger, Shell, Sinopec, Saudi Aramco, Qatar Petroleum, and others) and the banking industry (HSBC, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, ICBC and others), but he has also worked with many other industries (media, luxury goods, retail, shipping, asset management, etc.). He also advises some leading non-profit organisations on governance (UNICEF, the Red Cross). He is a member of the Risk Who's Who Society, the American Finance Association, the Eastern Finance Association, and the European Finance Association.
Professor Cossin holds a PhD from Harvard University (Robert C. Merton Chair) and is a former Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics (USA). He is a former student of ENS rue d'Ulm (France) and holds master degrees from Sorbonne University and EHESS (France).
Before joining IMD, Didier Cossin worked for Goldman Sachs (London, UK) and pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf (Tokyo, Japan) as it was considering an initial offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. He has taught at Harvard University, where he obtained two Derek Bok Awards for excellence in teaching, and was associate then full professor at HEC, University of Lausanne (1993-2002). He chaired the university’s Department of Management (1995-1997); was the Director of both its Institute of Banking & Financial Management (1997-2002) and its PhD in Management (1997-1999). At IMD, he has led or co-led the pension fund, the recruiting process, the faculty policies committee, client engagement initiatives and a strategy review as well as other administrative responsibilities supporting the success of the organization.
He has received distinctions such as the UBS Chair in Banking and Finance at IMD, the Febelfin BFI Chair and the Deloitte Risk Management Chair from other institutions.
Professor Cossin directs the High Performance Boards program at IMD as of June 2011..

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in…

Alfredo De Massis is an award-winning expert in the management and governance of family enterprises. His research has advanced understanding of how family business leaders balance economic and non-economic goals in strategic decision making and manage the paradox of tradition and innovation. At IMD he provides intellectual contributions by working on collaboration and scientific advisory activities within the Wild Group Chair in Family Business.
De Massis is one of the world's leading family business academics. In February 2022 he was included in Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list for his thought leadership in the family business field. In 2020 he was ranked as the most influential and productive author of the decade in the family business research field in a bibliometric study published in the European Journal of Family Business, and in 2015 Family Capital named him as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors.
His research focuses on the management, governance and behavioral aspects of family enterprises and how to ensure their prosperity across generations. His work examines how they align economic goals with other objectives such as maintaining family harmony and control of the business, creating jobs for the next generation, succession planning, and nurturing the reputation of the family in its community. He shows that successful family firms excel at leveraging their tradition, history, and heritage as strategic resources to enable innovation.
He also works closely with large and small businesses in several countries to help them build rigorous and reliable knowledge to promote long-term prosperity across generations. He recently helped companies and institutions including the UK government to address the new challenges that COVID-19 created for family firms, such as the need for rapid and unexpected succession, the dehumanization of relationships due to remote working, the effects of emotional vulnerabilities, and the salience of patrimonial and liquidity issues for families in business.
De Massis' prolific writings include seven books, notably the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business and Family Business Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, and more than 150 articles in leading academic and professional journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Academy of Management Perspectives, California Management Review, Family Business Review, Small Business Economics, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Research Policy and Global Strategy Journal.
Due to its economic and practical relevance, his research has been featured in numerous media outlets including the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Il Sole 24 Ore, and RAI. He is also an in-demand public speaker and is regularly invited to give keynote speeches at conferences, lectures to professional and academic audiences, and media interviews.
He also serves as Chairman of the Scientific Board and member of the steering committee of FA.B.R.I., [AD1] a non-profit association dedicated to Italian family enterprises, as Co-Director and Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Observatory on Italian Family Offices, and as member of the Scientific Board of the Italian Family Officer Association (AIFO). In addition, he has been Chair of the Strategic Interest Group on Family Business Research at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) and is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Family Business (IFB). He was previously Chairman of the European Leadership Council and a member of the Global Board of the STEP Project for Family Enterprising founded by Babson College.
In addition to his role at IMD, De Massis remains Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Business at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy, where he founded the Unibz Centre for Family Business Management, and he continues to support family business research projects at Lancaster University Management School’s Centre for Family Business in the UK, which he previously directed. He formerly served as a professor at the University of Bergamo, where he co-founded the Center for Young and Family Enterprise.
He is also Editor of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and Associate Editor of Family Business Review, two prestigious and influential journals in the field of family business, and Editor of FamilyBusiness.org, a US social media platform dedicated to sharing learning resources with family business practitioners.
He serves on the editorial boards of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Family Business Strategy, and has been guest editor of more than 20 leading journals’ special issues on family business topics.
Before embarking on his academic career, De Massis worked as a manager for SCS Consulting, a strategy consultant at Accenture, and as a financial analyst at the Italian Stock Exchange.
Selected publications
Are narcissistic CEOs good or bad for family firm innovation? (Human Relations, 2022)
Mining the past: History scripting strategies and competitive advantage in a family business (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2022)
Entrepreneurial by design: How organizational design affects family and nonfamily firms’ opportunity exploitation (Journal of Management Studies, 2020)
Managing the tradition and innovation paradox in family firms: A family imprinting perspective (Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 2019)
Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business (Edward Elgar, 2020)
Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors (Journal of Business Venturing, 2018)
Financial wealth, socioemotional wealth and IPO underpricing in family firms: A two-stage gamble model (Academy of Management Journal, 2018)
Innovation through tradition: Lessons from innovative family businesses and directions for future research (Academy of Management Perspectives, 2016)
Recognition
Named on Family Capital’s 100 Family Business Influencers list (2022)
Ranked as most influential and productive family business author of the decade (2020)
Named by Family Capital as one of the world’s 25 star family business professors (2015)
Education
Master of Science (Management Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano
PhD (Management, Economics, and Industrial Engineering)
Politecnico di Milano

Stéphane Garelli is Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD and Professor at the University of Lausanne.
He has founded the IMD World Competitiveness Centreand has pioneered research in this field for 30 years…

Stéphane Garelli is Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD and Professor at the University of Lausanne.
He has founded the IMD World Competitiveness Centre and has pioneered research in this field for 30 years.
Professor Garelli is closely connected to the world of business. He is, among others, Chairman of the Board of Directors of "Le Temps", the leading French language Swiss newspaper. He was formerly Chairman of the Board of the Sandoz Financial and Banking Holding, and member of the board of the Banque Edouard Constant.
Professor Garelli was the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and of the Davos Symposium for many years. For twelve years he was also permanent senior adviser to the European management of Hewlett-Packard.
He is a member of a number of institutes, such as: China Enterprise Management Association, Board of the ‘Fondation Jean Monet pour l'Europe’, The Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, the Mexican Council for Competitiveness, etc. and an advisory committee member of the Thai Management Association. He is also a member of the International Olympic Committee commission on Sustainability and Legacy
He is the author of numerous publications on competitiveness and global business, and he published his best-selling book "Top Class Competitors - How Nations, Firms and Individuals Succeed in the New World of Competitiveness" with Wiley. His latest book in French is: “Etes-vous un tigre, un chat ou un dinosaure’, chez Slatkine, Genève.
He was a member of the Constitutional Assembly of his local state - Vaud, Switzerland from 1999 to 2002.
Stéphane Garelli holds a PhD in economics from the University of Lausanne.

As a former Olympic finalist, award-winning writer, executive coach, and speaker with more than 20 years of corporate experience with large multinationals, Susan Goldsworthy brings knowledge from the fields of sport,…

As a former Olympic finalist, award-winning writer, executive coach, and speaker with more than 20 years of corporate experience with large multinationals, Susan Goldsworthy brings knowledge from the fields of sport, business and neuroscience to her leadership development work. She focuses on how leadership needs to change in an increasingly uncertain world, working with people and companies to turn knowledge into behavior to create the conditions for healthy high performance.
Goldsworthy believes that our current way of working and living is unsustainable – not only for ourselves, but for other species that share our planet – so the need for change with new narratives is critical. This includes a change in the style and type of leadership of organizations. No one person has all the answers, so the model of "power over" needs to be replaced by one of "power with" to cultivate conditions where people can flourish and co-create solutions to the challenges organizations face. This means uniting and working across departments, industries, cultures, and age groups, with a focus on inclusivity and diversity.
Goldsworthy has worked at senior management level in both publicly and privately owned companies in Japan, America and Europe, and has extensive experience in leading global communications, culture, brand management and diversity programs. She has also run her own successful business in leadership development, executive coaching and change communications for more than a decade. She is therefore able to offer expert guidance to individuals, teams, and companies on how organizations can develop clear, consistent, and credible narratives and instill a culture of sustainable high performance.
Notably, she has a long list of postgraduate qualifications and was one of the first people in the world to be awarded an Executive Masters in the Neuroscience of Leadership. Meanwhile, her doctoral research with Hult Ashridge International Business School explores [AD1] how leaders have a responsibility to co-create conditions for hope and agency in the current world context. As a highly qualified C-suite executive coach, she is also trained in the use of a number of psychometric assessment tools.
Before embarking on her studies, Goldsworthy had a successful international swimming career during which she was an Olympic finalist, medal winner at the European Championships and Commonwealth Games and British record holder for five years.
She is co-author of three award-winning books. The recently released Where the Wild Things Were is a story for all ages about leadership, responsibility, hope and biodiversity loss, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Bronze Medal in 2020. Meanwhile, Care to Dare: Unleashing Astonishing Potential through Secure Base Leadership, written with Duncan Coombe and George Kohlrieser in 2012, and Choosing Change: How Leaders and Organizations Drive Results One Person at a Time, co-authored with Walter McFarland in 2013, were both named among Soundview’s best business books of the year and won Axiom Business Book Award Silver Medals.
Goldsworthy works with a number of multinational clients across a wide range of industries. Her work with aviation technology group SITA won gold in the Excellence in Executive Education category of the 2021 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards. The category is specifically for executive education providers delivering targeted programs for specific clients. Goldsworthy and her team were honored for their work on the SITA 5.0 Leadership Journey, an IMD custom program for the company's top 200 executives.
In addition, she is Associate Director of IMD's CLEAR (Cultivating leadership Energy through Awareness and Reflection) senior leadership program and Co-Director of the new IMD Executive Coaching Certificate.
She is a fellow of the Institute of Data & Marketing, a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and the International Coaching Federation.
Selected publications
Can we have two golds? (Today's Manager, 2021)
Recovery: The forgotten aspect of high performance (Today's Manager, 2021)
Jan Van Hasenbroek: A 'red-pencil' leader at a crossroads (IMD, 2020)
Where the Wild Things Were (IMD, 2019)
Choosing Change: How Leaders and Organizations Drive Results One Person at a Time (McGraw Hill, 2013)
Care to Dare: Unleashing Astonishing Potential through Secure Base Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2012)
Recognition
Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards gold medal for Excellence in Executive Education (2021)
Axiom Business Book Awards bronze medal winner (2020)
Axiom Business Book Awards double silver medal winner (2014)
Named on Soundview best business books of the year list (2013 and 2014)
Education
BA (Hons) (Journalism and Industrial Psychology)
San Diego State University
MSc (Consulting and Coaching for Change)
HEC/University of Oxford
Executive Masters (Neuroscience of Leadership)
Middlesex University/NeuroLeadership Institute
PhD (Organizational Change) (finalizing)
Ashridge Hult International Business School

Jennifer Jordan is a social psychologist and is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD.
Professor Jordan's teaching, research, and consulting focus on the areas of digital leadership, ethics,…

Jennifer Jordan is a social psychologist and is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD.
Professor Jordan's teaching, research, and consulting focus on the areas of digital leadership, ethics, influence, and power. Professor Jordan has received specialized training and certifications in lie- and truthfulness-detection, as well as in conflict resolution within organizations.
Her work in these areas has appeared in several scientific journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. She was also a contributor to the books, Leadership at the Crossroads: Psychology and Leadership and The Handbook of Organizational and Managerial Wisdom, as well as an editor of one of the seminal scientific books on wisdom, Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives. Her work has been mentioned in mainstream publications from The New York Times to De Volkskrant (Netherlands).
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Jordan was an Associate Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands and a post-doctoral fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and Tuck School of Business in the United States.
Professor Jordan also served as a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. Professor Jordan received her doctoral degree and two masters degrees (Masters of Philosophy and Masters of Science in Psychology) from Yale University (United States). She is a member of the editorial board of the journals Leadership Quarterly and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Benoît Leleux is recognized as a leading specialist in entrepreneurship, venture capital, private equity, and corporate venturing, particularly in emerging markets, and is the winner of numerous case writing awards in…

Benoît Leleux is recognized as a leading specialist in entrepreneurship, venture capital, private equity, and corporate venturing, particularly in emerging markets, and is the winner of numerous case writing awards in categories relating to these topics.
His recent research and case writing activities have focused on sustainability as a source of entrepreneurial opportunities, and how entrepreneurs incorporate values into their projects for greater impact, as well as novel forms of financing for early and late-stage opportunities, from search funds to affinity financing, and innovative business models for corporate venturing such as open accelerators, venture clienting and corporate VC partnering.
He is the author of Winning Sustainability Strategies: Finding Purpose, Driving Innovation and Executing Change, published in 2019, which serves as the conceptual framework for a five-week IMD online course, Winning Sustainability Strategies (WSS), which he directs. The program targets general managers and executives in charge of sustainability efforts, equipping them with the tools required to analyze their firms’ sustainability footprint, investigate their materiality matrix, design an impactful transformation gameplan, and follow it through with proper metrics and communication strategy. The program highlights how to build solid business cases for sustainability strategies as a prerequisite to gain traction and ultimately achieve impact. He is also Co-Director of the Foundations for Business Leadership (FBL) program.
Leleux has published several other books, including Private Equity 4.0: Reinventing Value Creation, Investing Private Capital in Emerging and Frontier Market SMEs[AD1] , Nurturing Science-Based Startups: An International Case Perspective, From Microfinance to Small Business Finance and A European Casebook on Entrepreneurship and New Ventures.
In addition, he is a world-leading case writer and has consistently been ranked among The Case Centre’s best-selling case authors in the world. He has authored more than 30 award-winning cases at the crossroads of entrepreneurship, venture financing, emerging markets, and family business, most recently “Lionheart Farms (Philippines) and the tree of life”, winner of the 2022 HEC Montreal CSR Challenge Case Writing Competition, “Brown-Forman: Nothing better in the market”, which won the 2021 EFMD Case Writing Award in the Family Business category, and “EcoAlf: Because there is no planet B”, winner of the prestigious 2020 John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition.
He is also actively involved in numerous startups and venture capital and private equity funds as a board member, advisor or in other capacities.
Leleux has been at IMD since 1999, serving as Director of the MBA program from 2006 to 2008 and Director of Research and Development from 2004 to 2008. He was previously Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD and Zubillaga Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Prior to his academic career, he was the head of corporate venturing for a leading agribusiness conglomerate in Southeast Asia.
Selected publications
Lionheart Farms (Philippines) and the tree of life (IMD, 2022)
Brown-Forman: Nothing better in the market (IMD, 2021)
Ecoalf: Because there is no planet B (IMD, 2020)
Winning Sustainability Strategies: Finding Purpose, Driving Innovation and Executing Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
Private Equity 4.0: Reinventing Value Creation (John Wiley & Sons, 2015)
Investing Private Capital in Emerging and Frontier Market SMEs (IFC, 2009)
Nurturing Science-Based Startups: An International Case Perspective (Springer Verlag, 2008)
From Microfinance to Small Business Finance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
A European Casebook on Entrepreneurship and New Ventures (Prentice Hall, 1996).
Recognition
Winner of HEC Montreal CSR Challenge Case Writing Competition (2022)
Winner of EFMD Case Writing Competition Award (2021)
Named on Case Centre list of best-selling case authors (2015/16 to 2020/21)
John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition winner (2020)
Education
MSc (Agricultural Engineering)
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
MEd (Natural Sciences)
Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
MBA (International Management)
Virginia Tech
PhD (Corporate Finance and Venture Capital)
INSEAD

Jean-François Manzoni is the President of IMD, where he also serves as the Nestlé Professor.
His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations…

Jean-François Manzoni is the President of IMD, where he also serves as the Nestlé Professor.
His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations and corporate governance.
At the organisational level, Professor Manzoni studies the content of change (including the use of levers such as strategy, structure and systems), the management of the change process and the role of leaders therein. His work in this area has appeared in several books, articles and over 30 cases, four of which received Case of the Year Awards from the European Foundation for Management Development or the European Case Clearing House. He also acted as content expert in the development of a ground-breaking computer-based change management simulation, the Change Pro Simulation®.
At the individual level, Professor Manzoni studies how leaders can create a high-performance work environment and what they can do to modify their leadership style in that direction. This stream of research has led to several articles and a book entitled The Set-Up to Fail Syndrome: How good managers cause great people to fail (with Jean-Louis Barsoux). This book, which is built on Manzoni's and Barsoux's initial Harvard Business Review article introducing the term "set-up-to-fail syndrome", received two Book of the Year awards and is being discussed in undergraduate, MBA and executive development programs all over the world.
On the corporate governance side, Professor Manzoni focuses on interpersonal dynamics within the Boardroom and between management and the Board. Ongoing research examining the impact of interpersonal dynamics on increasingly diverse Boards of Directors received the Research Award on Leadership & Corporate Governance from the Association of Executive Search Consultants. A Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Directors, Professor Manzoni is currently serving on the Board of Keppel Corp., an international diversified group listed on the Singapore stock exchange, and previously served on the Boards of Singapore's Civil Service College and of AACSB International, the world's largest business education alliance.
A citizen of Canada and France, Professor Manzoni received his Doctorate from Harvard Business School. He had earlier graduated from l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montréal and worked with Ernst and Young in Montreal before receiving an MBA from McGill University.
Prior to re-joining IMD in 2016, Professor Manzoni had served on the IMD faculty between 2004 and 2010. He also previously served on the faculty of INSEAD, in Singapore and in Fontainebleau. While at INSEAD he founded and directed for four years the PwC Research Initiative on High Performance Organizations. He later directed the Global Leadership Centre supporting the school's leadership-related coaching, teaching and research activities throughout the world
The recipient of several awards for excellence in teaching, Professor Manzoni is a frequent keynote speaker. He also performed consulting, top management team support and leadership development work for several international organisations, which has led him to work in more than thirty countries over the years.
He currently serves or served on several International Advisory Panels, including Digital Switzerland, Singapore's Public Service Division and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA).

Joachim Schwass is Professor Emeritus of Family Business at IMD and founder of the IMD Global Family Business Center.
He has taught Family Business and Entrepreneurship with a main focus on generational and owner related…

Joachim Schwass is Professor Emeritus of Family Business at IMD and founder of the IMD Global Family Business Center.
He has taught Family Business and Entrepreneurship with a main focus on generational and owner related issues. He has lectured and conducted Family Business programs around the globe, and advised many of globally leading family businesses.
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Schwass was Managing Director of several companies which were part of his own family's business. He was managing industrial manufacturing businesses in Australia and USA as well as an international trading business in Switzerland. He started up several international businesses.
Educated in Germany, France and Switzerland, Professor Joachim Schwass attended graduate studies at Technische Universität Berlin and Université de Fribourg where he obtained a Lic rer pol and a Dr rer pol.
His book “Wise Growth Strategies in Leading Family Businesses” was published in 2005, in German in 2007, in Spanish in 2008, in Mandarin in 2012 and in Japanese in 2015. He is the lead author of "Wise Wealth", which was published in 2010, and in Mandarin in 2013. He is the lead author of “Wise Family Business, Family Identity Steering Brand Success”, which was published in 2016.
He directed the Annual Distinguished Family Business Award for 10 years. He was Executive Director of the Family Business Network (FBN) for 10 years and served on the Board until 2010.

Paul Strebel works with boards of directors and top management teams as an educator and advisor on strategic vision and the resolution of boardroom conflicts. In addition to personal experience as a board director, he…

Paul Strebel works with boards of directors and top management teams as an educator and advisor on strategic vision and the resolution of boardroom conflicts. In addition to personal experience as a board director, he has facilitated interactive workshops and seminars on best in-class boards and strategic breakthroughs for multinationals in Europe, U.S., South Africa, the Middle East and S.E. Asia.
He is the originator of several managerial frameworks:
Outpacing Business Strategies (developed together with Xavier Gilbert): Companies shouldn’t opt exclusively for low delivered cost, or high perceived value, but rather deploy them in sequence to drive the industry’s evolution and beat the competition.
Employee Compacts: To make organizational change effective, management must understand why employees resist change, take account of the forces of change and resistance and offer employees correspondingly tailored compacts.
Contingent Governance: Board directors are more effective when they are aware of the four basic roles of the board that reflect support and control, and how the board should shift focus between the roles to deal with internal and external challenges.
Redefined Stakeholder Capitalism: Executives can reconcile shareholders with other stakeholders, by focusing rigorously on creating long-term shareholder value, based on win-win initiatives with value creating stakeholders, while avoiding the value-destroying traps and ESG risks associated with others.
Professor Strebel has twice received the Award for Research on Leadership from the Association of Executive Search Consultants and has won several case study awards from the European Foundation for Management Development. He has published articles in the MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Long Range Planning, among numerous others and has contributed on governance issues to the business press.
Paul Strebel's books include, Breakpoints: How Managers Exploit Radical Business Change (Harvard Business School Press); The Change Pact: Building Commitment to Ongoing Change (FT Prentice Hall); Trajectory Management: Leading a Business over Time (Wiley); Smart Big Moves: The Story Behind Strategic Breakthroughs (FT Prentice Hall). He is the co-editor of IMD's guidebook on Mastering Executive Education: How to Combine Content with Context and Emotion (FT Prentice Hall)
Professor Strebel was IMD’s first Director of Research, held the Sandoz Family Foundation Chair in Strategic Change Management, sponsored the introduction of IMD’s Executive MBA program, directed several of IMD’s open and company-specific executive development programs, and developed the IMD online program, Strategic Thinking.
Prior to joining IMEDE, one of the two founding institutes of IMD, he was Chairman of the Finance and Economics Group at the State University of New York in Binghamton, Director of the MBA Program at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and on the financial staff of W.R. Grace & Co.
He was educated at the University of Cape Town where he was awarded a Master of Science degree for a thesis in nuclear chemistry, graduated from Columbia University in New York with an MBA specializing in finance, and received his doctorate with a dissertation in chemical physics from Princeton University.

Francisco Szekely is Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Sustainability at IMD.
His work contributes to the understanding of the interrelationships between the emergence of new social, economic and environmental trends as…

Francisco Szekely is Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Sustainability at IMD.
His work contributes to the understanding of the interrelationships between the emergence of new social, economic and environmental trends as well as the development of long-term, sustainable business strategies. His research explores how companies can include sustainability as a key element of their business strategy; the link between sustainability and business performance; high performance leadership; the development of the leadership required by organizations to sustain long-term business performance over time, as well as the development and expectations of generations “Y" and "Next."
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Szekely served on the faculties of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, MIT, the International Academy of the Environment in Geneva, Switzerland and the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, Germany where he taught sustainable development and responsible leadership. Additionally, he has worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company managing clients in Mexico, the US and Holland and has served as a Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources for the Mexican government. Most recently, Professor Szekely was Professor of Business Sustainability and Director of the Center for Responsible Business and Sustainability at the School of Management of the University of Texas at Dallas.
He is the author of seven books, numerous articles and many case studies and is the recipient of the “2011 International Award on the Hot Topic Case Writing” from the European Case Clearing House (ECCH). His works have been published in the European Management Journal, Environmental Assessment Review (MIT), and other refereed journals.
Professor Szekely holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, an M.Sc in Engineering from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and an M.Sc in Technology & Human Affairs and a Ph.D in Environmental Sciences and Economics from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Named one of the top business school professors globally by Poets & Quants, which included her on its 'Best 40 under 40' list in 2021, Ina Toegel's work focuses on how to build and sustain high-performance teams. She…

Named one of the top business school professors globally by Poets & Quants, which included her on its 'Best 40 under 40' list in 2021, Ina Toegel's work focuses on how to build and sustain high-performance teams. She started her career as an economist at the World Bank – an atypical background which means she adopts an interdisciplinary approach in her work. Meanwhile, her strong interest in the creative industries inspires her to incorporate interactive tools from the fields of film, sports, music, and the arts in her teaching.
Toegel says teams play a crucial role as vehicles for change in organizations seeking to make major transformations. Her approach when engaging with companies is to work with project teams or individual units in an agile way – looking at the individual make-up of the team, dynamics within the team, and how these relationships are embedded in the organizational context. Much of her work involves leading organizational change and aligning organizational culture with strategic priorities.
She is also keen on leveraging technology to enable executives to develop new ways of working, communicating, and collaborating. She uses virtual reality to explore how teams improve over time, and is investigating how AI can be used to recognize emotions – as well as its implications for an organization's business, how it structures its operations, and how it works with customers.
She has led and taught on customized leadership programs for a wide range of organizations, including Hilti, Pirelli, Tetra Pak, Beiersdorf, Société Générale, DNB, DENSO, Vontobel, Buehler, Legrand, UEFA, MANE, Siam Commercial Bank, Bank of Communications, Bayer, Electrolux, ASSA ABLOY, T-Systems, Carlsberg, JTI, Hydro, and Tenaris.
She also leads IMD's Teams Reimagined open program and the culture transformation stream of its MBA and EMBA courses.
Poets & Quants said her inclusion on its 'Best 40 under 40' list was a recognition of her structured and inspirational approach to working with team dynamics and organizational culture transformation. She received nearly 100 nominations for the honor, making her one of the most nominated professors in its history. Participants, alumni, and faculty colleagues who nominated her praised her energetic style and ability to get people thinking, with one describing her as "our Socrates".
She is also a member of the Academy of Management and of the Strategic Management Society, and she presents at the Organizational Development and Change division during the Academy of Management's Annual Meeting.
Prior to joining IMD in 2015, Toegel taught corporate strategy at the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne. In her previous role at the World Bank, she was involved in projects on structuring public-private partnerships in the transport, energy, and waste sectors in southeast Europe.
Selected publications
Why every team needs a Ringo (I by IMD, 2021)
Secrecy in practice: How middle managers promote strategic initiatives behind the scenes (Organization Studies, 2021)
The role of inclusion in responsible global leadership (Routledge, 2020)
Pep (Guardiola) talks – tapping into collective emotions (IMD, 2020)
How to beat gender stereotypes: Learn, speak up and react (World Economic Forum, 2019)
Thrive as an LGBT+ executive or ally ([email protected], 2019)
How to create a high-performance team: Top tips for better collaboration (HR Future, 2018)
How to create a high-performance team (Forbes, 2018)
Recognition
Named on Poets & Quants 'Best 40 under 40' list of the world’s leading business school professors (2021)
Education
BA (Economics)
Columbia University, New York
MSc (Management Research)
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
PhD (Strategic Management)
INSEAD

Omar Toulan is Professor of Strategy and International Management and the Dean of the MBA program at IMD. Professor Toulan's areas of expertise include strategic management, international business, growth strategies, and…

Omar Toulan is Professor of Strategy and International Management and the Dean of the MBA program at IMD. Professor Toulan's areas of expertise include strategic management, international business, growth strategies, and managing the multinational. Among his areas of research are offshoring and outsourcing, global account management, emerging market multinationals, and the impact of the digital disruption on the retail sector. His research has appeared in a variety of academic and practitioner oriented journals including Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, California Management Review, Industrial and Corporate Change, Emerging Markets Review, and Journal of Latin American Studies.
Before joining IMD, Dr. Toulan spent 19 years at McGill University in Canada where he was a tenured professor and also served as Associate Dean Academic and Masters Programs of the business school, overseeing all faculty and leading the introduction and redesign of various masters programs. He has also spent time as a Visiting Professor at London Business School, INSEAD, Imperial College, Stockholm School of Economics, and Universidad Torcuato di Tella. He has been awarded various research and teaching grants, including a Teaching Chair from the Quebec Government. He has given executive seminars extensively not only in Europe and North America but also Latin America and Japan.
Prior to entering academia, Professor Toulan worked as a management consultant for McKinsey and Company in its New York office, as well as at its Global Institute in Washington, D.C. He has also worked as a researcher at the US President's Council of Economic Advisers.
Professor Toulan received his undergraduate degree in International Economics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and went on to complete his PhD in Strategy at the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors…

Peter Vogel is an expert on family enterprises and leads IMD's work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors under the age of 40 in 2022 and included in Family Capital’s Top 100 Family Business Influencers list in both 2020 and 2022.
He works with families, owners, boards, and executives of family enterprises and family offices around the world, focusing on transformations, governance, ownership and leadership succession, wealth management, fostering entrepreneurialism and innovation within the system, and on establishing professional boards and leadership teams. He does so through major transformation journeys that include custom programs, advisory work, and open programs, as well as tailored diagnostics and workshops.
The IMD Global Family Business Center aims to be the world's leading center of excellence in the domain, and to act as a trusted learning partner for global enterprising families and a safe space where they can go for neutral advice and support. Its mission is to help enterprising families ensure family unity and business success across generations while also having a positive impact on society.
Vogel says long-term success and unity depend on having a healthy family enterprise ecosystem, so this requires a holistic approach covering the legacy family business, any new businesses, the family office and investment activities, and all aspects of what he calls “total family wealth” – human, social, financial and reputational capital.
He is Director of a suite of programs offered by the Center – Leading the Family Business (LFB), which was launched in 1988 as the world's first family business program, Navigating your Family Enterprise into the future (NFE), and Leading the Family Office (LFO).
Helping with the establishment of family offices accounts for a growing share of the Center's work, with many families now looking to transition from being a family in business to managing their private wealth through a family office structure. It is therefore working on the development of an advanced LFO program, which will act as a certification program for aspiring family officers.
Vogel is also Director of the IMD Global Family Business Award, which recognizes excellence in the art of building and managing a successful, sustainable and well-governed family-owned enterprise. The award was established in 1996 and is now seen as the most sought-after prize in the field of family business.
In addition, he is co-author of the award-winning book Family Philanthropy Navigator, the first in a planned trilogy on family businesses. The book will be followed by Family Office Navigator in 2022 and Family Enterprise Navigator in 2024.
Family Philanthropy Navigator, which offers a step-by-step guide that philanthropic families can use as they seek to make a real difference through their giving, earned praise from Beatrice Fihn, winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and Executive Director of ICAN, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal in 2021.
Vogel has published articles in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has written several books and book chapters as well as scientific and practitioner-oriented reports. His work is frequently referenced by leading newspapers and other media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Financial Times, and TechCrunch.
He is a regular conference speaker and has appeared at TEDxLausanne, the Global Economic Symposium, the Family Matters Forum, the Family Business Network Global Summit, the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, and the St. Gallen Symposium, among others.
He is also an Associate Partner of the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, and an alumnus of the Forum’s Global Shapers Community.
Before joining IMD in 2017, he served as Director of Custom Programs and Business Development at the Executive School of University of St. Gallen. He was previously Assistant Professor of Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen, as well as Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Swiss Start-up Monitor Foundation.
Before embarking on his academic career, Vogel was an entrepreneur. He launched several ventures in the software segment and remains Chairman of the investment firm Delta Venture Partners.
Selected publications
Family Office Navigator (IMD, 2022)
The Sika takeover battle (IMD, 2021)
Family Philanthropy Navigator (IMD, 2020)
From venture idea to venture opportunity (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2017)
Recognition
Named on Poets&Quants Best 40 under 40 list of leading business school professors (2022)
Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner (2021)
Named on Family Capital’s list of Top 100 Family Business Influencers (2020 and 2022)
Education
BSc (Mechanical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
MSc (Biomedical Engineering)
ETH Zurich
PhD (Entrepreneurship)
EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)
Contact us
Would you like to know more about our activities? Get in touch with our team at the IMD Global Family Business Center.