Blended program

Innovation in Action

Master innovation through real-world application
Reinventing the customer and fan experience in sports & entertainment.

Blended program

Innovation in Action

Master innovation through real-world application
Reinventing the customer and fan experience in sports & entertainment.

Location IMD campus, UEFA and IOC Headquarter

Length 6 weeks liVe virtual (2h per week), 1 week face to face

Fee CHF 8,900

Next program starts –

Gain a comprehensive toolbox for innovation breakthroughs and build your entrepreneurial skills

What is the common thread between Yamaha, Alibaba, Microsoft, Uber and Amazon? These companies are all clear leaders in their industries, and all embrace innovation and entrepreneurial thinking as part of their overall business strategy. To survive and maintain a competitive edge, companies must continuously innovate and re-invent themselves. However, innovation in theory is one thing but applying it in practice to real-world business problems is quite another.

IMD has partnered with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to bring you the Innovation In Action program. You will put innovation and your entrepreneurial thinking into practice with a real-world innovation challenge, bolster your leadership skills and apply what you have learned to your own business with a concrete action plan.

Learn the skills of successful entrepreneurs

Learn to deal with failure and iterate your thinking by making sense of experiments that don’t work.

Uncover the secrets of innovation

Get hands-on training in ideation, design-thinking and prototyping techniques.

Turn promising ideas into business opportunities

Identify factors that can derail or slow down your efforts to innovate.

Bolster your leadership to lead innovation

Engage people in your vision with powerful rhetorical and storytelling techniques.

You and your class

This program welcomes participants from all industries. A typical class includes 50% of participants from sports and entertainment and 50% from other industries.

Are you trying to grow and sharpen your innovation capabilities as a leader or as a team?
Are you working for an established organization that needs to escape the business as usual and explore disruptive new trajectories and business ideas?
Are you facing deep customer shifts and searching for a toolbox that will let you imagine new experiences and drive change in your industry?

This program is designed for individual entrepreneurs, managers and executives who want to learn the mindset and skills required to steer customer innovations from early concept development to validated breakthrough solutions. It will appeal to people from a wide range of industry sectors, operating both within and beyond the world of sports and entertainment.

Boost your innovation and entrepreneurial skills

Put innovation and your entrepreneurial thinking into practice with a real-world innovation. See the program in action and hear from the program director.

Innovation skills are best acquired through concrete hands-on experience

During the program, partnering with UEFA and the IOC, you will practice innovation and hone your entrepreneurship skills. The program is delivered as an immersive experience at the IMD campus as well as 2 days at UEFA and IOC Headquarters in Lausanne. You will get the chance to meet and get inspired by renowned keynote speakers from the entertainment industry and top-level professional athletes.

Throughout the program you will be working on a concrete, real-world challenge and explore innovative ways to rethink customer journey’s during and after major sporting events.

Embrace design thinking and learn key innovation frameworks

Dive into real-world innovation challenges

Learn from inspirational industry keynote speakers

Reflect on and improve your leadership style and effectiveness

Your learning journey

Module 1 : Launch

Immerse yourself

6 sessions (2 hours each) over 6 weeks
liVe Virtual classroom

Module 2 : Design

Learn, apply and reflect

4 days at IMD Campus
1 day at UEFA Headquarter
1 day at IOC Headquarter
1 evening at the Olympic Museum

Module 3 : Transform

Transfer learning to your own context

3 individual coaching sessions (1 hour each), over 6 weeks
liVe virtual classroom

Module 1 – liVe Virtual sessions schedule (subject to change)

liVe Virtual	Date	Times (CEST)	Topic
Session 1	27 September	15:00 – 17:00	Kick-off
Session 2	04 October	15:00 – 17:00	Think like a designer
Session 3	11 October	15:00 – 17:00	Understand what customers want
Session 4	19 October	15:00 – 17:00	Leverage the power of new technologies
Session 5	25 October	15:00 – 17:00	Innovate the business model
Session 6	Week of 31 October	Set timing with your coach	Capture learning and define objectives

Many organizations tell us they want to be fast, agile, and re-invent the value they can bring to business and society, but game-changing offerings are hard to come by. Most executives struggle to define what it means to be truly innovative. And they want tools that will help them keep up with the rapid pace of change occurring in their business environments.

Read more

Cyril Bouquet Program Director

Cyril Bouquet’s publications

Learn the five principles required for innovative thinking

by Cyril Bouquet, Michael R. Wade, Jean-Louis Barsoux

Through exhaustive research, we have identified the core principles that can help executives change their mindsets and foster positive innovation for themselves and their teams.

Lessons from BioNTech’s unorthodox path to breakthrough solutions

by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, Michael R. Wade

The biotech firm’s innovative approach to COVID-19 vaccines demonstrates the three critical shifts needed to boost the chances of radical innovation.

What every start-up can learn from Frank Gehry, the extreme experimenter

by Jean-Louis Barsoux, Cyril Bouquet, Michael R. Wade

Too much focus on validation can stifle flexibility and open-mindedness, the qualities essential for innovation. Gehry, the world-renowned architect, is a case study in how to achieve success by doing things differently.

Julie Uhrman

Co-Founder and President, Angel City Football Club, Los Angeles

Uhrman is Co-Founder and President of Los Angeles’ Angel City Football Club a National Women’s Soccer League based in Los Angeles, and founder and CEO of game console company AOUYA. She was named one of Adweek’s 2020 Most Powerful Women In Sports, one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, and one of the Creative 50 by AdAge

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Christophe Dubi

Olympic Games Executive Director, International Olympic Committee

Dubi oversees the management of all aspects of the Olympic and Youth Olympic Games. He works in collaboration with partners across the Olympic Movement with a mission to ensure the Games remain among the world’s premier sporting events and leave a lasting and meaningful legacy.

Before taking up his current position, Christophe served as IOC Sports Director from 2007 to 2014. He has written and lectured extensively about sports management and his vision of the Olympic Games and their unique contribution to sport, the economy and culture.

A graduate in economics and holder of a Master’s in sports administration from Lausanne’s Public Administration Higher Education Institute, Christophe spent his early career in finance, real estate, and as a teacher of political economics.

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Emmanuelle Roger

Co-Founder & CEO, Immersiv.io

Roger, an entrepreneur and sports fan, co-founded Immersiv.io 4 years ago to build the future of the fan experience. Immersiv.io is now operating at an international scale, recognized for its expertise in Augmented Reality and awarded for its sports solutions ARISE. Passionate about innovation and creation, she has been working for more than 10 years with major players of the sports industry (UEFA, Bundesliga, NHL, Roland Garros, etc.) to create and deliver experiences for millions of fans.

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Samuel Westberg

CEO, LaSource

In the sports tech industry for the last 10+ years, Westberg has been leading sales across different startups. With LiveLike, he had the luxury of working with all sorts of sports entities (clubs, leagues, federations, broadcasters etc.) on major sporting events, FIFA WC, Roland Garros, Clasico. In 2019, he decided to launch his own agency, LaSource, to represent the best sports tech organizations in Europe and provide strategy, sales, accounts, and marketing support to accelerate the companies’ growths. Lasource’s portfoli includes LiveLike, Greenfly and Slate.

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Angela Ruggiero

CEO and Co-Founder, Sports Innovation Lab

Ruggiero is a global sports leader, having served as an elite athlete, advocate, educator, administrator, advisor, investor, board member, and now visionary CEO in the world of sport.

She is a 4-time Olympian and gold medalist in ice hockey and in 2005 was the first woman to play – and score in a men’s professional hockey league in 2005, with the Tulsa Oilers. She is a member of the 2015 Hockey Hall of Fame and the 2019 Olympic Hall of Fame.

Angela has been named on the Sports Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 list as well as Forbes’ Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Sport. She is a graduate of Harvard Business School (MBA), Harvard College (BA), and the University of Minnesota (M.Ed.).

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Next start & fee

Length: 6 liVe sessions over 6 weeks plus one weeks face-to-face on Lausanne campus, IOC, and UEFA headquarters.

Tuition, teaching materials, and lunch are included.
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.

One step closer to joining the IMD Alumni Network

This program will bring you closer to achieving your IMD Alumni Status. Get ready to become part of our exclusive network of global business leaders.

Learn more

One step closer to joining the IMD Alumni Network

This program will bring you closer to achieving your IMD Alumni Status. Get ready to become part of our exclusive network of global business leaders.

Learn more

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