Ralf Boscheck is Professor of Economics and Business Policy. Boscheck teaches strategy, economics, and regulation, as well as country analysis and macroeconomic policy. For 30 years, his research has focused on how to assess competitive advantage, either from having a superior offer or simply an abuse of a dominant position. He is currently working on the Business and The Human Prospect, a project which identifies the regulatory obstacles that effectively prevent companies from profitably addressing the fundamental challenges facing humanity.

He has worked with an extensive list of corporate clients and authorities including ABB, Allianz, Atkins, Aventis, Bayer, Bertelsmann, CLP Group, Chopard, Cisco, Clariant, De Mello, Danisco, DuPont, Eon, Grundfos, Henkel, Hoechst, Holcim, Metso, Nestlé, Nestlé Health Science, Novartis, Norske Shell, Oman Electricity Authority, PwC, Roche, Santander, TXU Europe, Thames Water and WorleyParsons.

Companies should not be taken to task for making a lot of money, provided they create even more value for society – which unfortunately is not always a sure thing.

Boscheck returned to IMD in September 2021 after a three-and-a-half-year leave of absence to serve as Dean of the Business School at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile. In that role, he undertook a fundamental reform of the school’s undergraduate program, changed the faculty and research policies, and built up a research-sharing network of 10 Latin American universities.

From 2014 to 2017 he was Dean of the IMD MBA program and launched the Navigating the Future conference at which MBA students gave presentations to an executive audience on trends shaping tomorrow’s business environment. During that period, he was also Director of IMD’s International Consulting Projects.

Earlier, he directed the Managing Corporate Resources (MCR) open program, precursor to the current Advanced Management Program (AMP), and the Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives (BPSE), IMD’s most senior general management program. He currently teaches on the MBA and Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) programs.

He has written four books, including Market Drive and Governance (Routledge, 2002) and Strategies, Markets and Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and has had more than 40 articles published in refereed academic journals. Syntheses of his academic work have often been republished for a broader audience in various media outlets, and he has written articles for the Financial Times, Handelsblatt, Les Echos and other titles. During his time at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile, he had a monthly column in the business newspaper Diario Financiero. He has also served as a member of the editorial boards of World Competition, Intereconomics, and the International Journal of Energy Sector Management.

Before joining IMD in 1990, Boscheck was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University, research associate at the Swiss Institute for International Economics, and a consultant with The Monitor Company.