Luxury in a fractured world
Reinventing Luxury Lab
Luxury in a fractured world
Just like the changing world order, luxury no longer moves in one clear direction. Today’s brands sit on widening fault lines that pull their strategy in opposing directions. Social and economic polarization is intensifying, generational behaviors are diverging, and rapid technological advances increasingly sit in tension with the enduring authority of artisanal heritage.
Meanwhile, new players are emerging from across the world, often bringing new perspectives on the market and how to compete – challenging long-established brands, and the systems on which they were built.
IMD’s 10th Reinventing Luxury Lab, centered on the theme of “Luxury in a fractured world” is designed for this moment. The program focuses on how you can hold opposing forces in balance, and make deliberate strategic choices while aligning creativity, organisation, and culture as complexity grows.
Throughout a unique two-day experience, you’ll explore case studies and presentations from industry experts, alongside a curated group of peers, in an environment that inspires innovation, renewal and resilience.
Guest speakers will be announced in Q1 2026.
What is IMD’s Luxury Lab?
IMD’s Reinventing Luxury Lab is an exclusive, high-impact program that brings together top executives, industry experts, and thought leaders to explore the biggest forces reshaping luxury today. It offers a space to step back from operational urgency and engage with the strategic and leadership questions that define moments of industry transition.
Each edition is built around a central theme reflecting luxury’s biggest challenges. Through research-driven insight, real-world perspectives, and sustained peer exchange, it supports leaders as they guide their organizations through change, while preserving what makes luxury distinctive.
Insights from faculty
The luxury industry is transforming, and staying ahead requires bold innovation. Reinventing Luxury Lab is an exclusive experience where industry leaders collaborate, challenge conventions, and co-create new strategies to shape the future of their brand.
General Manager (Europe & Africa), Puig
Switzerland
(2025 participant)
Senior Retail Consultant, Brand Retail Solutions
Switzerland
(2025 participant)
Co-Founder, Aevum Lux
Switzerland
(2025 participant)
Reinventing Luxury Lab surpassed my expectations. Engaging directly with industry experts and academics on real-world challenges transformed my understanding of the luxury sector. The insights, strategic tools, and valuable professional network I gained will be essential as I build and grow my new luxury venture with focus, agility, and resilience.
Principal, Rechsteiner Group
Canada
(2025 participant)
It opened my mind to what’s really possible with regards to business development, growth and ambitions with the correct mindset, strategies and culture. It also helped show me what really defines true luxury and various business concepts to achieve that.
Retail Area Manager, Prada Switzerland
(2023 participant)
My experience at IMD’s Reinventing Luxury Lab was transformative. Exploring growth implications, especially with regard to sustainability and circularity, broadened my perspectives profoundly. I’m grateful for the invaluable insights I gained from the professors and my colleagues.
Marketing Director, Shiseido, Switzerland
(2023 participant)
Reinventing Luxury Lab seamlessly blended the art of marketing with a profound commitment to environmental and social responsibility. The panel of industry experts equipped me with invaluable skills for navigating the dynamic world of luxury brands while championing sustainable practices. A truly enriching and forward-thinking educational journey.
CEO, Hirmer Hospitality,
Germany
(2021 participant)
It’s extremely enriching for me to be with professionals from the other companies. What’s happening around us in the other luxury businesses is fundamentally exchanged within the program. Bringing in the concept of really reinventing luxury and looking at what it’s going to be in the future is something that’s crucial for us to understand to impact change.
Morning: Fighting commoditization and brand dilution
- The new geopolitical map of luxury
- A look at disruption and past cycles
- Emerging luxury models from outside traditional centres (China, India, Korea)
- Strategic responses to protect distinctiveness
- Defining your brand’s next strategic moves in a multipolar market
Afternoon: Luxury branding in a fractured world: New perspectives
- The evolution and limits of today’s luxury branding fundamentals
- The next success factors
- Engaging Gen Z, and implications for other customer segments
- Winning the battle of transparency
- Communicating and engaging customers about values and future
Gala evening
Morning: Cultural, skills, and organizational evolution
- Cultural evolution: alignment, autonomy, and collaboration across borders
- Leadership and operating models
- Talent and cultural integration: the merging of artisan and algorithm
- Preparing the organization for AI and agentic AI
Afternoon: Rebuilding customer trust in the spaces of retail
- Fixing the fundamentals of physical retail (and role of AI)
- Restoring purpose and value to the physical retail experience
- The big return of wholesale
- Retail and wellness
- Revaluing space in a phygital world: presence, augmentation, and meaning
“In these volatile times, luxury brands must future-proof themselves and learn to create new paths forward to meet the challenges that lay ahead.”
Stéphane JG Girod is Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation. His research, teaching, and consulting focus on the transformation of large businesses to suit more volatile and fast-changing environments. He focuses on strategy formulation, organizational and cultural change, business agility, sustainability, and the formulation and execution of digital strategy.
He sets out this thinking in his book Resetting Management: Thrive with Agility in the Age of Uncertainty, which shows how…
Stéphane JG Girod is Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation. His research, teaching, and consulting focus on the transformation of large businesses to suit more volatile and fast-changing environments. He focuses on strategy formulation, organizational and cultural change, business…
Stéphane JG Girod is Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation. His research, teaching, and consulting focus on the transformation of large businesses to suit more volatile and fast-changing environments. He focuses on strategy…
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Join a complementary masterclass of information session and dive into topics such as leadership, AI, strategy, and more. You’ll discover more about how we teach and explore our executive programs along the way. See all upcoming IMD events.
