Michael Wade is Professor of Innovation and Strategy. An expert on digital transformation, he holds the Tonomus Professorship in Digital Business Transformation and is Director of IMD’s Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. An expert in digital transformation, he has published 10 books and more than 100 case studies as well as articles on topics such as digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digital leadership. In 2021, he was elected to the Digital Shapers Hall of Fame by a consortium of Swiss business media and launched the Management under the Microscope podcast, in which he unpacks business myths through conversations with academics and business executives.
Wade helps organizations with the challenges they currently face as they seek to use digital tools and technologies to drive business value. His research shows that 87% of digital transformation programs fail to meet expectations, so his work focuses on identifying the mistakes organizations make when they implement such programs and best practices in execution. What differentiates successful from less successful organizations is how good they are at integrating digital technologies into a broader organizational and cultural transformation, he says. His work also covers ways to improve innovation and creativity, leading effectively in a digital age, and the link between digitalization and ethics.
When it comes to digital transformation, the keyword is ‘transformation’. Digital is an enabler, but it is only a means to an end. The end is always some kind of business performance benefit.
His book Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation, was published in 2021. The book is aimed at helping companies to solve problems related to digital transformation. That same year, he released a book on innovation and creativity called ALIEN Thinking: How to Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life. His 2016 book, Digital Vortex: How Today’s Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at their Own Game, won multiple awards and was a bestseller in several languages.
Wade has also been published in leading journals including Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and Strategic Management Journal, and is a regular contributor to Fortune Magazine, Forbes, and The Conversation, providing commentary on digital business issues and trends.
At IMD, he founded and directs Leading Digital Business Transformation (LDBT), Europe’s first and largest program for executives on digital. He is also co-director of several other open programs including Leading Digital Execution (LDE), Digital Transformation for Boards (DTB), and the recently launched Digital Transformation Sprint (DTS) and Business Creativity and Innovation Sprint (BCIS). He has also designed and directed custom programs related to digital strategy and transformation for dozens of organizations across industries and sits on a number of corporate boards as an advisor on digitization and business model disruption.
Before joining IMD in 2010, Wade was Associate Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems in the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. As part of this role, he served as Academic Director of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Program and Associate Director of the International MBA Program.
