Get up to speed with accelerated learning in all the essential cross-functional business leadership skills
- The very latest in IMD thought leadership
- Develop your leadership fundamentals
- Boost your management skills
Develop your leadership fundamentals
Do you have gaps in your current business knowledge that are limiting your career development? Perhaps you are in a functional role and are either looking to, or are about to move into a general management position?
IMD's Foundations for Business Leadership program brings you up to speed with accelerated learning in all the essential cross-functional business leadership skills and helps you to integrate them into your business as a whole.
Across three weeks you develop your critical leadership competencies and accelerate your mastery of the true business fundamentals that will enable you to deliver lasting value for your career, and your organization.
For participants considering a longer learning journey, this program acts as your first step to IMD’s Executive MBA, or you may choose to pursue our Program for Executive Development and earn a diploma.
Foundations for Business Leadership: key benefits
Participant profiles
You are an experienced manager looking to boost your cross-functional business skills to become an effective general manager/business leader. You aim to move, or have just moved, into general management. Typically you are working as a function or department manager, or already managing a business, country or region.
Your class is individually put together through a selection process to ensure that you experience the most impactful learning with a truly diverse group of global peers. Your class will become a trusted resource, encourage your learning journey and surprise you in many unanticipated beneficial ways both during and beyond your classroom experience.
Experience the program
When you arrive at Foundations for Business Leadership (FBL), you step away from the distractions of your daily work environment for 20 consecutive days to intensely focus on the cross-functional skills that leaders must possess to be a general manager.
You will progress through a cross-disciplinary exploration of the critical challenges faced by organizations and business leaders today. This will provide the context in which you develop your general management skills and integrate the business fundamentals. Specifically, you will learn how to:
- Respond to shifts in customer needs
- Drive business model innovation
- Manage complex organizations
- Leverage globalization
- Identify industry and business trends
- Manage uncertainty
- Integrate technological evolutions and their impact on business
These themes will be addressed as you study the core business functions and processes of a global organization.
Your learning journey
Example Topics:
- Finance & accounting
- Business model, innovation
- Operations management
- Managing in turbulent time
How:
Case studies, class discussions, group work, presentations, team effectiveness session with coach
Example Topics:
- Global supply chain management
- Corporate entrepreneurship
- Customer centricity
- Corporate strategy & industry analysis
How:
Case studies, class discussions, group work, presentations, team effectiveness session with coach, business simulations
Example Topics:
- Expanding the market
- Value proposition & ecosystems
- Competing on information flows
- Dynamic strategy analysis
How:
Case studies, class discussions, group work, presentations, team effectiveness session with coach, live case, integrative exercise with faculty and alumni panel
Join IMD’s professional alumni network
Once you complete an IMD program, you join IMD’s alumni network, an outstanding global community of global business leaders who will support you long-term. Discover benefits
Diploma - Program for Executive Development (PED)
FBL is the first stage of IMD’s Program for Executive Development (PED). To complete PED, your second step is to take IMD’s Transition to Business Leadership (TBL) program. Successful completion of both programs and exams leads to the Program for Executive Development (PED) diploma.
Degree – Executive MBA
FBL is also the first step towards IMD’s Executive MBA. Participants wishing to complete the EMBA then follow a 5-week distance learning module and a 12-month mastery stage leading to the EMBA degree. More details on the Executive MBA can be found here.
Example Topics:
- Finance & accounting
- Business model, innovation
- Operations management
- Managing in turbulent time
How:
Case studies, class discussions, group work, presentations, team effectiveness session with coach
Example Topics:
- Global supply chain management
- Corporate entrepreneurship
- Customer centricity
- Corporate strategy & industry analysis
How:
Case studies, class discussions, group work, presentations, team effectiveness session with coach, business simulations
Example Topics:
- Expanding the market
- Value proposition & ecosystems
- Competing on information flows
- Dynamic strategy analysis
How:
Case studies, class discussions, group work, presentations, team effectiveness session with coach, live case, integrative exercise with faculty and alumni panel
Join IMD’s professional alumni network
Once you complete an IMD program, you join IMD’s alumni network, an outstanding global community of global business leaders who will support you long-term. Discover benefits
Diploma - Program for Executive Development (PED)
FBL is the first stage of IMD’s Program for Executive Development (PED). To complete PED, your second step is to take IMD’s Transition to Business Leadership (TBL) program. Successful completion of both programs and exams leads to the Program for Executive Development (PED) diploma.
Degree – Executive MBA
FBL is also the first step towards IMD’s Executive MBA. Participants wishing to complete the EMBA then follow a 5-week distance learning module and a 12-month mastery stage leading to the EMBA degree. More details on the Executive MBA can be found here.
Practice while you learn - Integrative exercises
Two weeks through the program, you take part in a 2-day business simulation which integrates your learning and gives you greater insight into your business performance.
During this dynamic, integrative exercise, you bring together all the new general management skills you have learned on FBL and put them into practice by simulating the running and growing of a company. You improve your decision-making skills and overall performance as you see how your decisions impact company results over two years.
For the last 2 days of the program, you prepare an integrative team exercise to bring all the threads of the program together. You present your learning to a panel of judges of FBL alumni and receive your final evaluation.
Throughout the program, you receive feedback as you develop as an effective individual and team member. You will be challenged by the work, by the faculty, and by your peers to ensure that you reach the high standards set by IMD.
What are our participants saying about the program?
Participants and teams from all over the world join this program to build their essential business and leadership skills - read some of their stories.
Admission and next sessions
Duration: 3 weeks online (20 intensive days including weekends). Offered five times a year.
*All fees quoted are exclusive of any value-added or other indirect taxes that may be due in any country.
*IMD reserves the right to modify the program dates, location, and fee at any time.
Learn more about IMD admission, payment and cancelation process
Take your next step
IMD Business School Rankings
#2 worldwide for open programs - 2022 (Financial Times)
#1 worldwide for open programs for nine years in a row - 2012-2020 (Financial Times)
Top 3 worldwide for executive education / combined ranking for open & custom programs since 2012 (Financial Times)
Top 5 worldwide for overall ranking for more than 15 years in a row (Financial Times)
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