Luxury 2050
What is the IMD Luxury 2050 Initiative?
Through vibrant communities, cutting-edge thought leadership, and pedagogical activities, IMD’s Luxury 2050 initiative aims to help luxury brands across sectors to navigate the heightened uncertainty and seismic shifts that will redefine luxury in the years to come, and to do so with agility.
We support brands’ efforts to shape the future of more innovative, relevant, and environmentally and socially responsible luxury.
At luxury fashion house Maison Chloé, minds were focused on the first collection of new Creative Director, Gabriela Hearst, which was just hitting the stores.
In a short span of five or six years, CHANEL embraced CSR (corporate social responsibility) and ESG (environmental, social, governance) initiatives that stretched far beyond its established comfort zone.
Zimmerli of Switzerland is a small Swiss brand that offers the highest quality underwear for men and women in the luxury segment.
The pandemic badly hit the ‘salons’, the traditional way in which luxury brands do business – but don’t write them off yet.
NFTs can further many of the sector’s closest-held values, but brands first need to consider the habits of their demographic.
Chief executive of leading Swiss luxury watch brand says COVID-19 prompted a complete reassessment of their business model.
It’s essential to stay relevant and become more purposeful as customers are increasingly buying into the values of a brand just as much as their products.
MBA Activities
IMD MBA alumni have been working across luxury sectors, some in C-suite positions. Each year, recruiters like EssilorLuxottica, Cartier, Richemont, and LVMH engage with IMD MBA participants and join IMD’s Career Development Center’s recruiting activities.
In 2020, the MBAs launched a retail and luxury cluster with some 20 students, facilitated by Professor Stéphane J.G. Girod. This consists of inviting guest speakers at IMD to help students network, gather useful information for their job applications and interviews.
2022, MBAs interested in pursuing a career in luxury will be able to follow an elective on the Fundamentals of Luxury Management, also organized by Stéphane J.G. Girod.
If you have a good (remunerated) internship for one or a group of students over the summer vacation (July), please contact our career development team [email protected]
Across years and programs, we are several hundred IMD Alumni working across the wide range of luxury industries. We don’t necessarily know each other. What if we could join forces to help each other and share in a more informal environment to address the challenges and transformations our brands are experiencing and to support each other personally?
Luxury needs to secure its transformation towards purpose and sustainability. Digital is still not necessarily intuitive or well used everywhere. The next generation of the virtual economy is looming. Plenty is at stake.
For example, in automobile, the shift to mobility remains challenging. Many start-ups are transforming the field with new ambitions, already inventing the next tradition. Ecosystems become a norm for brand desirability. Younger talents and generations are expecting something else and are already bringing their own ideas, solutions and buying habits. The shift to greater strategic, organizational and leadership agility comes with its own specificities for luxury.
Together we are stronger to navigate these challenges and grab these opportunities. We want to create a vibrant community of practice across cohorts and programs. We want to give each other plenty of opportunities for networking, peer-to-peer learning, mentoring, and reverse mentoring. We want to improve by learning the latest thought leadership from IMD and beyond.
IMD fully supports our ambition. Our school has great ambitions in the luxury space. Stéphane J.G. Girod, who himself worked in luxury fashion, launched the Reinventing Luxury Lab in 2017. An MBA luxury and retail cluster has been growing since 2020.
IMD is currently looking for a partner to launch a Chair or research center to support the transformation of luxury brands.
Meet the team
Partnerships
