IMD Pathfinder®
IMD Pathfinder® enables and empowers senior teams and their organizations to unlock barriers and identify compelling opportunities for growth and transformation. This holistic approach builds on our thought leadership and experience working with leading businesses to address critical issues and challenges. Through IMD Pathfinder®, we engage senior leaders and their organizations to accelerate strategies, strengthen or reinvent their core, and explore paths to create transformative businesses.


Read our IMD Pathfinder® Brochure
Our approach
Each journey begins with some critical questions such as:
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How do we stay ahead in the face of disruption and rapidly changing markets?
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How can we rediscover our purpose and redefine our impact to enable growth and profitability?
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How can we build, deepen and leverage relationships with our broader ecosystem to create opportunities for increased value?
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How can we rethink how and where we innovate to lead trends and shape markets?
Our approach harnesses the collective expertise of organizations, empowering people to shape the future of their company. Building on our academic rigor and thought leadership, IMD acts as advisor, topic expert and provocateur. Throughout the process, IMD Faculty challenge leaders’ assumptions and equip them with the tools to develop their own solutions.

- Learn more about how we helped our clients with IMD Pathfinder®: Client stories
- Discover our latest insights: Thought leadership
- Meet our team.
Client Stories
Clients approach us to help them shape the path forward for their organizations. This may be related to finding new growth avenues while protecting the core, strengthening their foundation, accelerating strategies, or putting purpose at the core of their strategies. Explore some examples below.

Thought Leadership
Browse our collection of articles and videos on strategy, purpose and transformation, reflecting our point of view and insights from our client work.
Our Team
Meet some of our team of Faculty, Experts and Analysts. Ability built on thought leadership and years of experience working with leading global businesses.

Goutam Challagalla, Professor of Strategy and Marketing, focuses on how digital advances and sustainability concerns are impacting companies' business strategies and approaches to marketing. Having helped companies to…

Goutam Challagalla, Professor of Strategy and Marketing, focuses on how digital advances and sustainability concerns are impacting companies' business strategies and approaches to marketing. Having helped companies to rethink their business models and build new capabilities in the face of the digital revolution, he is now helping to integrate into their strategy sustainability related challenges and opportunities.
Challagalla's teaching, consulting and research highlight the different challenges facing companies as a result of digital and sustainability transformations. While digital advances require the development of new business models in order to become more effective or efficient, taking on sustainability goals means that organizations have to rethink their whole raison d'être and their relationship with all stakeholders.
He is therefore well placed to help companies prepare for further acceleration in digital and sustainability transformations in the post-pandemic world, particularly by designing strategies that are resilient for today and tomorrow. His research shows how digital breakthroughs can derail businesses, as well as the steps they can take to protect themselves and leverage digital technologies for gain. It also provides insights on ways in which firms can exploit purpose and digital advances to drive sustainability priorities, on brand strategies for sustainability, customer centricity, and how to design and lead the modern sales organization in the wake of COVID-19.
He is currently working on a book on digital pathways for value creation, which examines six ways in which companies can use digital advances to drive customer value and loyalty. The book is due to be published later in 2022 or in early 2023.
His research has been published in top marketing and management journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of Applied Psychology, with a paper in Harvard Business Review forthcoming. He also served on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Marketing and Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management.
Challagalla has led programs on strategy and marketing issues for clients from a wide range of B2B and B2C industries, including AT&T, Bangkok Bank, Beiersdorf, Cargill, GE, Grundfos, Kone, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Reckitt, Tetra Pak, Turner Broadcasting and Zurich Insurance Group.
At IMD, he is Director of the Advanced Management Program (AMP), the Digital Marketing Strategies program (DMS) and Strategy Governance for Boards program. And until recently he ran an annual event for Chief Marketing Officers, which was attended by the CMOs of firms from across Europe (e.g. Tetra Pak, Dow, IBM Europe).
Before joining IMD in 2015, Challagalla served for 20 years as a marketing professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, where he was Associate Dean for Executive Education and head of the marketing department. He also worked as Principal at The Monitor Group, a strategy and marketing consulting company.
Selected publications
The joint and multilevel effects of training and incentives from upstream manufacturers on downstream salespeople's efforts (Journal of Marketing Research, 2020)
The online challengers threatening to disrupt the disrupters (Financial Times, 2020) How Coke, Apple and others use marketing doctrine (Forbes India, 2015)
Marketing doctrine: A principles-based approach to guiding marketing decision making in firms (Journal of Marketing, 2014)
Implementing changes in marketing strategy: The role of perceived outcome and process-oriented supervisory actions (Journal of Marketing Research, 2012)
Proactive postsales service: When and why does it pay off? (Journal of Marketing, 2009)
Awards
Outstanding Dissertation Award at UT-Austin (1994) Decision Sciences Institute Best Paper Award (2006)
American Marketing Association Best Services Paper award (2010) Maynard Award for best paper in Journal of Marketing (2015)
Education
After graduating from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India, Challagalla earned an MBA at Arizona State University and a PhD at the University of Texas in Austin.

Carlos Cordon is a Professor of Strategy and Supply Chain Management. Cordon’s areas of expertise are supply chain management, digital, value chains, digital lean and process management, all of which are particularly…

Carlos Cordon is a Professor of Strategy and Supply Chain Management. Cordon’s areas of expertise are supply chain management, digital, value chains, digital lean and process management, all of which are particularly relevant topics in the context of the supply chain challenges that businesses are facing. His research and teaching are currently focused on the reconfiguration of supply chains in the face of persistent disruptions, how supply chains are driving revenue, reshoring and onshoring, and digital strategies.
Cordon says supply chain constraints have become a driver of extraordinary growth in profits for some companies as a result of availability constraints, increased demand and higher prices. General Motors sold 20% fewer cars in 2021 than in 2019 as a result of a shortage of microchips, for example, but still managed to record a 48% rise in profits over the same period.
He is the author of numerous articles and case studies in his specialist fields and has won various awards for his work. He was named on the the Case Center list of the top 50 best-selling case authors globally in 2020/21 and was a winner in the 2017 EFMD Case Writing Competition with IMD colleagues Benoît Leleux and Beverley Lennox for a case study on Adidas.
He is also the author of four books, including the 2016 title Strategy is Digital, which explores how companies can use big data in their value chains. The book presents strategies and practices to allow companies to take advantage of the huge business opportunities arising from the advent of big data and guides them through their big data journey.
Cordon is a consultant to multinational companies in the electronics, food, chemical, pharmaceutical, and car industries, among others. He has designed and directed numerous executive development programs and has helped some of the world’s biggest companies to develop their supply chain and digital strategies, including Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Coca Cola, Merck, Mondelez, Unilever, Heineken, Philip Morris, Danone and Reckitt Benckiser among others. He is also a member of the Coca-Cola European Partners’ Digital Advisory Board.
He joined IMD in 1993 after completing a PhD in Management at INSEAD. He was previously a manager in Accenture’s manufacturing and distribution consulting group and MIS Manager at Grupo General Cable in Spain (now part of the Prysmian group).
Selected publications
Why sustainability targets are close to mission impossible (I by IMD, 2021)
Re-use or recycle? Designing a business model for the circular economy (I by IMD, 2021)
Physical stores' surprising comeback in the pandemic (Shanghai Daily-Shine, 2021)
The antibiotic ecosystem conundrum (IMD, 2020)
Sustainable adoption of digital health innovations: Perspectives from a stakeholder workshop (Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2019)
Strategy is Digital: How Companies Can Use Big Data in the Value Chain (Springer, 2016)
The Value Chain Shift: Seven Future Challenges Facing Top Executives (IMD, 2014)
Strategic Supply Chain Management (Routledge, 2012)
The Power of Two: How Smart Companies Create Win-Win Customer-Supplier Partnerships that Outperform the Competition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
Recognition
Named on Case Centre list of top 50 best-selling case authors (2020/21)
Winner of EFMD Case Writing Competition (2017)
Education
Master's degree (Civil Engineering)
Escuela Politecnica de Barcelona
PhD (Management)
INSEAD

Frédéric Dalsace is a Professor of Marketing and Strategy at IMD. Prior to that, he spent 16 years as a Professor at HEC Paris, where he held the Social Business / Enterprise and Poverty Chair presided by Nobel Laureate…

Frédéric Dalsace is a Professor of Marketing and Strategy at IMD. Prior to that, he spent 16 years as a Professor at HEC Paris, where he held the Social Business / Enterprise and Poverty Chair presided by Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. Prior to his academic life, Frédéric accumulated more than 10 years of experience in the business world, both with industrial companies (Michelin and CarnaudMetalbox), and as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company.
He has worked with more than 40 multinational firms in many sectors, such as Porsche, Traton (VW Truck & Bus), Lafarge-Holcim, Colas, Dassault, Renault, Rabobank, Santander, Orange, Bouygues, Atos and others.
His research covers two areas. The first part focuses on inter-organizational (B2B) issues such as customer-centricity, buyer-seller relationships and value management. Frédéric also has been doing research on the role of firms in alleviating poverty and developing inclusive business models, both in rich countries and at the BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid). He has published in academic journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, Revue Française de Gestion and Business Horizons. His thesis work received the ISBM (Institute for the Study of Business Markets) 2000 Award, and he was awarded the HEC Foundation Prize for the best research piece published by the HEC Faculty in 2004, and the Best Article Prize published by Business Horizons in 2017.
Frédéric is an alumnus from HEC Paris, holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and both an MSc and a PhD in Management from INSEAD.

Thomas W. Malnight is Professor of Strategy and General Management and Faculty Director of the Business Transformation Initiative (BTI) at IMD. His fields of interest are strategy, leading and accelerating…

Thomas W. Malnight is Professor of Strategy and General Management and Faculty Director of the Business Transformation Initiative (BTI) at IMD. His fields of interest are strategy, leading and accelerating transformational organizational change and the role of purpose in redefining businesses and their impact on society.
Professor Malnight works extensively with top leadership teams in challenging how they view their emerging volatile and uncertain competitive landscape, how they shape future strategies and organizations for moving forward, how they engage and align priorities and actions across their organizations and leadership teams. This work has led to the creation of the BTI at IMD, focused on partnering with senior business leaders as partners and provocateurs in addressing and co-creating responses to major challenges.
Professor Malnight’s research focus has been on trends reshaping the future of business strategies and organizations. He is the co-author of “Put Purpose at the Core of Your Strategy” (forthcoming in Harvard Business Review, September 2019). He is also the co-author of “The 3Rs of Preparing Your Organization for the Future”, "Must Win Battles: How to Win Them, Again and Again" and "Accelerating International Growth." He co-authored the Global Trends Reports 2011, 2012, and 2013. He has written for the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Journal, McKinsey Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of International Business Studies, and the Academy of Management Journal. He has also authored more than 30 case studies on various aspects of global strategy and organization.
Prior to joining IMD, Professor Malnight was on the faculty of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1999. He has attended graduate studies at Harvard Business School, Boston, MA where he obtained a Doctorate of Business Administration and wrote a dissertation on "Managing the Globalization Process: An Exploratory Study". He obtained an MBA from The Wharton School in 1979 and a BA from Northwestern University in 1977. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for 10 years at Mitsubishi International Corporation, including two years working in Japan.
Professor Malnight also consults extensively with companies from around the world on the topic of emerging future strategies and organizations.

Vanina Farber is an award-winning economist and political scientist who specializes in social innovation and the mobilization of private capital for impact investing. Her research focuses on innovative, practical,…

Vanina Farber is an award-winning economist and political scientist who specializes in social innovation and the mobilization of private capital for impact investing. Her research focuses on innovative, practical, sustainable, and inclusive market-oriented approaches that have the potential to change the world by eliminating the root causes of social ills. She is particularly interested in social innovation, social entrepreneurship, impact investing, sustainable finance and ESG, and applies a gender lens in all her research projects.
A key element of her work is to explore how the private sector can embed the idea of impact in the investment decision making process, particularly in relation to risk-adjusted return calculations and resource allocation. She seeks to understand the social innovation landscape through a holistic approach that examines both the supply of and demand for social innovation initiatives.
At IMD, she leads the elea Center for Social Innovation which is carrying out important research in this area. Among other topics, the Center is looking at how the private sector can deploy capital at scale for investments in projects with real social impact, and how private, public sector and philanthropic investors can collaborate effectively.
The Center was created by a donation from the family of Peter Wuffli with the aim of inspiring leaders in business, government, and civil society to create social innovation in their respective areas of responsibility.
In 2020, Farber co-authored the book The elea Way: A Learning Journey towards Sustainable Impact, with Peter Wuffli, the Founder and Chairman of the elea Foundation for Ethics and Globalization. The book summarizes insights from the foundation’s 15-year journey and is aimed at entrepreneurs, investors, executives, philanthropists, policymakers, and anyone curious about entrepreneurship and inclusive capitalism. Using real-life examples, it includes suggestions on how to lead impact enterprises in such areas as developing strategies, plans and models, building effective teams and organizations, managing resources, and handling crises.
Farber’s work involves collaboration with a range of financial institutions and corporate clients, and in 2022 she will launch IMD’s Driving Innovative Finance for Impact open program in partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Lombard Odier, and the World Economic Forum. She also plays an active part in the Swiss Lab for Sustainable Finance and Gender Lens Initiative for Switzerland research networks, and is an advisory board member at the Impact Finance Forum and an international academic advisory board member at the Católica Porto Business School in Portugal.
She also teaches courses on impact investing in IMD’s MBA and Executive MBA programs and leads the pioneering Discovery Expedition to Peru for EMBA participants, where they perform due diligence on Peruvian social enterprises for Swiss and local impact investors.
Farber was named Outstanding Case Writer in the 2022 Case Centre Awards for her study on pay-as-you-go technology company Angaza. She has also been recognized as winner of the EFMD Case Writing Competition 2022 in two categories: African Business for Angaza, and Responsible Leadership for Nia Impact Capital. She also won the responsible leadership category in the 2019 EFMD Case Writing Competition for her case on Philip Morris International's vision of a smoke-free future.
Prior to joining IMD in 2018, Farber was Professor and Chair of Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Social Inclusion at Universidad del Pacífico, Peru. In January 2022 she was appointed as the fifth Dean of the IMD EMBA program.
Selected publications
Defining and conceptualizing impact investing: Attractive nuisance or catalyst? (Journal of Business Ethics, 2022 forthcoming)
Gender and entrepreneurial propensity: Risk-taking and prosocial preferences in labour market entry decisions (Social Enterprise Journal, 2021)
The elea Way: A Learning Journey Toward Sustainable Impact (Routledge, 2020)
Will Covid-19 pave the way for more business responsibility? Evidence from Switzerland (Enterprise for Society Center, 2020)
In Alain Gibb's footsteps: Evaluating alternative approaches to sustainable enterprise education (International Journal of Management Education, 2016)
Recognition
Winner of the Case Centre Outstanding Case Writer Competition (2022)
Global Business School Network Going Beyond Award finalist (2021)
Winner of EFMD Case Writing Competition Awards (2019 and 2022)
Education
Bachelor's degree (Political Science)
University of Buenos Aires
MA (Economics)
University of Memphis

Knut Haanaes' research and teaching focuses on strategy, sustainability, strategic renewal and business models. He is co-author of the best-selling book Your Strategy Needs a Strategy and a successful TED speaker, and…

Knut Haanaes' research and teaching focuses on strategy, sustainability, strategic renewal and business models. He is co-author of the best-selling book Your Strategy Needs a Strategy and a successful TED speaker, and was until recently the Dean of the Global Leadership Institute at the World Economic Forum. He is a former Senior Partner and Global Leader of the Strategy Practice at the Boston Consulting Group.
Your Strategy Needs a Strategy was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015 and won praise from the likes of World Economic Forum founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Ian C. Read and Benetton CEO Marco Airoldi. The book has since been translated into seven other languages and its findings have underpinned much of Haanaes' teaching since he joined IMD in 2015. Meanwhile, his TED talk "Two reasons companies fail – and how to avoid them" has attracted more than 2 million views.
Haanaes says the different pillars of his work enable him to help companies think about their path for the future and take account of new trends like demands for greater sustainability. He believes that the secret to creating lasting, impactful companies is to find a balance between doing what you're good at (exploitation) and looking for new challenges to take on (exploration).
Sustainability is also an important cornerstone of his work. At BCG he led a collaboration with MIT on the topic, developing one of the largest databases globally of how executives address sustainability, and founded the BCG global sustainability initiative. And at IMD he plays a coordinating role in the Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) alliance of eight leading European business schools set up in 2021 to address the climate crisis. The schools plan to collaborate on research to identify and shape best practices, and work across industries to accelerate the business community’s response to climate change. He is also heavily involved in IMD's strategic partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which aims to equip business leaders with the skills to accelerate the pace of sustainable business transformation and create the most sustainability-centered MBA program in the world.
Through his work with clients, Haanaes has accumulated extensive experience in a number of industries on issues of strategy. At IMD, he has helped run custom programs for Neste, CMS, Technip FMC, Coca-Cola Bottling, Mondelez, Maybank, Rio Tinto and Iberdrola. He is also Director of the Leading Sustainable Business Transformation (LSBT) program, head of the sustainability stream in the MBA program and teaches in many of the school's key open programs, including the Advanced Management Program (AMP), Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives (BPSE) and Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP).
Haanaes has published articles in top publications such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review and research reports for BCG, The World Economic Forum and MIT.
Haanaes is a member of the CEO’s Sustainability Advisory Board at Carlsberg and a board member at private bank Alpian. He has also served as Chairman of BI Norwegian Business School, a member of the Global Agenda Council on New Economic Growth Models at the World Economic Forum, Executive Director of the Research Council of Norway, and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University.
Selected publications
Business schools must do more on climate change (Harvard Business Review, 2022)
How the university of the future must adapt to train future leaders (Forbes, 2020).
Your Strategy Needs a Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015)
Making sustainability profitable (Harvard Business Review, 2013)
How serious is climate change to business? (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2013).
Sustainability as adaptability (Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 2012)
Sustainability nears a tipping point (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2012).
New sustainability study: The 'embracers' seize advantage (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2011)
Recognition
President’s Award, BCG
Expansion Management Review Best Article
BI Norwegian Business School best lecturer prize
Education
MSc (Economics)
Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH)
PhD (Strategy)
Copenhagen Business School

Amit Joshi, Professor of AI, Analytics and Marketing Strategy at IMD, specializes in helping organizations use artificial intelligence and develop their big data, analytics and AI capabilities. An award-winning professor…

Amit Joshi, Professor of AI, Analytics and Marketing Strategy at IMD, specializes in helping organizations use artificial intelligence and develop their big data, analytics and AI capabilities. An award-winning professor and researcher, he has extensive experience of AI and analytics-driven transformations in industries such as banking, fintech, retail, automotive, telecoms, and pharma.
Joshi believes that no organization's digital transformation is complete until they really understand their data and how to upscale their analytical capabilities. He is currently focusing on how organizations can ensure that AI implementation occurs strategically and at scale rather than in small islands of excellence.
He has delivered customized programs for several companies including UBS, Sonova, Johnson & Johnson, Guardian Life, Mars Petcare, Securitas, Bank Danamon, Bayer, Ooredoo, Siam Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi School of Governance, Hanover RE, and Migros. He also advises start-ups on their strategies.
At IMD, he is Director of the Digital Excellence Diploma and the Digital Analytics (DA) open program. He is also Co-Director of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Digital Strategy and Analytics (DSA) programs.
Joshi’s research, which focuses on long-run marketing strategy, analytics, and AI applications, has been published in top journals, including the Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Culture, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. He has twice won the MSI/H. Paul Root Award for the best paper in the Journal of Marketing and the Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award for the Marketing Science Institute publication with the most long-term impact.
His work and thought leadership have frequently been cited in the media and have been covered by outlets including NPR, CNN, NBC, Nikkei, the Financial Times, Fast Company, Business Standard, Fox News, Bloomberg, Forbes, Le Temps, Investor Relations Magazine, The Conversation, and Science Daily. He is frequently invited to give keynote speeches and led a panel discussion with marketing experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020.
Before joining IMD in 2017, Joshi was in academia in the US and prior to that worked as a sales manager at Cadbury India, now part of the Mondelez International group.
Selected publications
6 principles to build your company’s strategic agility (Harvard Business Review, 2021)
The building blocks of an AI strategy (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)
How intelligent is your AI? (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)
How CEO/CMO characteristics affect innovation and stock returns: findings and future directions (Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2020)
A meta-analysis of electronic WOM elasticity (Journal of Marketing, 2015)
The direct and indirect effects of advertising spending on firm value (Journal of Marketing, 2010)
Advertising spending and market capitalization (Marketing Science Institute, 2004)
Recognition
Named as one of Switzerland's Digital Shapers by Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Digitalswitzerland (2020)
Winner of EFMD Case Writing Competition (2019)
MSI/H. Paul Root Award for best paper in Journal of Marketing (2015 and 2010)
Marketing Science Institute Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award (2006)
Education
Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering
University of Pune
Post Graduate Diploma in Management
Indian Institute of Management
PhD in Management
UCLA Anderson School of Management

Profile
Winter Nie’s expertise lies at the intersection of change management and leadership, with a focus on strategy, team dynamics, and change initiatives. She has a deep understanding of how people at different levels…

Profile
Winter Nie’s expertise lies at the intersection of change management and leadership, with a focus on strategy, team dynamics, and change initiatives. She has a deep understanding of how people at different levels in an organization react to change and how leaders can effectively manage resistance and organizational dynamics.
Nie says companies are always dealing with tensions in relation to their external environment, strategic direction or internal capabilities, and that there are no perfect answers that always apply – everything depends on the individual company’s situation, purpose, strategy, and positioning – but she is able to help leaders skillfully navigate through these tensions into the future.
She is trained in psychodynamics as well as business, holding a Tavistock Consulting Advanced Certificate in Decoding Group Dynamics and certifications in several psychometric instruments on leadership and organizational development, so a lot of her work focuses on top management team dynamics. She helps business leaders to improve team dynamics where necessary, but also to identify situations where problems may have their roots in the strategy or external environment rather than the dynamics of the team.
Nie is also able to guide companies through organizational transformation and change initiatives, believing that the only way to keep up with the unrelenting pace of change in the world is to constantly learn, unlearn and relearn, with openness, courage, and humility.
She is particularly well equipped to provide support on strategic initiatives in areas such as customer centricity, moving from products to solutions, and operational/service excellence, and she has in-depth knowledge of doing business in emerging markets, low-cost competition, and innovation culture.
Nie works with companies who want to embark on organizational transformation at the individual, team, and organizational levels, looking beyond surface rationality into the unconscious forces below that shape the direction and speed of change. She also supports companies with senior leadership development, including work with both Western and Chinese companies on CEO and senior executive succession. Her advice is always anchored in the organization's goals and business requirements and leverages her keen observations of team dynamics and individual behaviors and insights into human nature.
She has worked with many global companies in a wide range of industries, including engineering and technology, service and consulting professions, fast-moving consumer products, banking and finance, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, gaming, and the internet, and sits on the boards of Singaporean software company Opsis and Chinese e-commerce group Valuesense.
Nie teaches on IMD's flagship Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) program and is Dean of IMD China with responsibility for the school's business development and client relationships in the country. She also served as IMD’s Regional Director of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania until 2019.
She is the author of several books and articles in academic and practitioner-oriented journals.
Her 2021 book The Future of Global Retail: Learning from China's Retail Revolution provides a roadmap to help global retail executives prepare for the decade ahead, drawing on lessons on innovation, purpose and agility in emerging markets. Nie and co-authors Mark Greeven, Yunfei Fang and James Wang call this framework the “Beyond” Value Chain Model.
Her MIT Sloan Management Review article “Rethinking the East Asian Leadership Gap” showed how the difficulties experienced by many multinationals in identifying managers with leadership potential in East Asia are more to do with prevailing Western views of leadership than about available talent.
Nie’s 2012 book In the Shadow of the Dragon: The Global Expansion of Chinese Companies – and How It Will Change Business Forever provides insights into subtle yet powerful strategies used to gain market dominance, key players' approach to going global and the Chinese way of innovation, and her 2009 title Made in China – Secrets of China's Dynamic Entrepreneurs explains how multinationals can compete or work with Chinese entrepreneurs.
Before joining IMD in 2006, she was a tenured Associate Professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management in the United States.
Selected publications
The Future of Global Retail: Learning from China's Retail Revolution (Routledge, 2021)
Rethinking the East Asian Leadership Gap (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2017)
In the Shadow of the Dragon: The Global Expansion of Chinese Companies – and How It Will Change Business Forever (AMACOM, 2012)
Made in China: Secrets of China's Dynamic Entrepreneurs (John Wiley & Sons, 2009)
Recognition
John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition award (2022)
Education
BS (Economics)
Zhejiang University, China
MBA
University of Montana
PhD (Operations Management)
University of Utah

Howard Yu is the LEGO® Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD.
He is the author of the award-winning book LEAP: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied.
In 2015, Professor Yu was selected by Poets&…

Howard Yu is the LEGO® Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD.
He is the author of the award-winning book LEAP: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied.
In 2015, Professor Yu was selected by Poets&Quants as one of "The World's Top 40 Business Professors Under 40," and in 2018 he appeared on the Thinkers50 Radar list of thirty management thinkers "most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led."
He is also a two-times (2013-2015) prize-winning case writer awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) - Europe's largest network association in the field of management development, with more than eight hundred member organizations. In 2017, Yu was awarded for his work in the "outstanding case writer on the hot topic Big Data - Risks and Opportunities" category at the Case Centre Awards, which are called the business school Oscars by the Financial Times.
He delivers customized training programs at IMD for major global companies in Asia and Europe including China's TravelSky, China Resources, COFCO, and Tencent; Japan's Nitto and Recruit Holdings; Singapore's Temasek, ASML, Daimler, Bosch, Electrolux, LEGO, Sanofi, and Novartis.
Professor Yu is a Hong Kong native with a doctoral degree in management from Harvard Business School. Prior to his doctorate, he worked in the Hong Kong banking industry.

Anca Burca is project lead in the Business Transformation Initiative at IMD. She has over 12 years of experience in advisory and industry on three continents, mainly in strategy, transformation and customer experience…

Anca Burca is project lead in the Business Transformation Initiative at IMD. She has over 12 years of experience in advisory and industry on three continents, mainly in strategy, transformation and customer experience topics. Anca believes in business as a force for good, and actively supports social impact and sustainability-related initiatives.
Some of her projects include co-leading strategic transformation journey with medical device client to identify new wave of growth, co-leading team of consultants, experts and other stakeholders in designing model of care for three healthcare areas as part of Vision 2030 for client in the GCC, and developing partnership strategy in sustainable building materials for global materials science company.
Prior to joining the advisory world in 2011, Anca worked for two years with DFS – the travel retail division of LVMH – analyzing global sales and doing monthly reporting, based in Singapore. She started her career with an AIESEC Management Traineeship at AGF – asset management firm in Canada, looking after the French-speaking customer base.
Outside of work, Anca enjoys classical music, discovering new places and cultures, and giving back to communities. She mentored startups, led organization of sustainability-related events for the IMD MBA Chapter in Zurich. She is also a board member at the Bellerive Impact Fund, IMD MBA Alumni initiative, focusing on startups that aim to achieve specific SDGs.
Anca holds an MBA in General Management from IMD Lausanne (Switzerland), an MSc in Business Management for SMEs from the University of Auvergne-Clermont 1 (France) and a BSc in International Business from the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest (Romania).

Ivy Buche is Associate Director of the Business Transformation Initiative at IMD. She works with IMD faculty on business transformation projects for multinational companies across diverse industries. Her specialization…

Ivy Buche is Associate Director of the Business Transformation Initiative at IMD. She works with IMD faculty on business transformation projects for multinational companies across diverse industries. Her specialization is in the subject areas of Strategy and Organizational Behavior. Specifically, her research focuses on understanding how large incumbents frame/re-frame their corporate purpose and successfully bring it to life through strategic choices and decision making. Her expertise is in qualitative research and conducting diagnostics.
Ivy has over 15 years of experience as a researcher and case writer. She has published more than 60 business case studies. In 2020 she won the EFMD case award for Indian Management Challenges. She has also won case writing awards in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 for the John Molson International Case Competition, Canada. In 2021, her case on Cisco (India) was on the bestseller list at The Case Center, UK. She received the Best Case award for the Hot Topic–Big Data, Opportunities and Challenges. She regularly publishes articles on The Conversation, UK.
Prior to joining IMD in 2014, Ivy spent 7 years at the Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) as research associate. Before moving to academia, she worked for 4 years in the automobile industry at Tata Motors (India) in quality assurance and spare parts divisions.
Ivy is a doctoral candidate (Part-time) at ESCP Business School, France. She holds an MBA in Human Capital Management from the Nanyang Business School (Singapore), and a BE in Metallurgy from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (India).

Karine Avagyan works with IMD faculty on academic and practitioner research projects and publications across diverse management areas. Her expertise lies in quantitative and qualitative analysis. She has also…

Karine Avagyan works with IMD faculty on academic and practitioner research projects and publications across diverse management areas. Her expertise lies in quantitative and qualitative analysis. She has also supported IMD faculty in the diagnostics and delivery of several Business Transformation Journeys with clients across diverse industries globally.
Karine has over 19 years of experience in research, including the areas of macroeconomy, finance and strategy. She has worked as an economist at the Central Bank of Armenia for 11 years, building macroeconomic models, analysing the Armenian economy and indicators, and contributing to various strategic papers on the Armenian economic development. She also has experience in building business and financial models for companies across industries, as well as teaching Macroeconomic Modelling at the Financial-Banking College of Armenia, and Strategy at the School for Young Leaders.
Karine joined IMD in 2012. She holds an MBA in Strategy and Finance from Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), and a Diploma of excellence in Economics and Finance from Yerevan State University (Yerevan, Armenia).

Mahwesh Khan works with IMD faculty on academic and practitioner research projects and publications across diverse management areas. Her expertise lies in working with corporate boards and C-suite on integrating…

Mahwesh Khan works with IMD faculty on academic and practitioner research projects and publications across diverse management areas. Her expertise lies in working with corporate boards and C-suite on integrating governance and sustainability within the strategy.
Mahwesh has over 15 years of experience in facilitating transformation journeys for companies and organizations. She has worked for the ESG department at International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group for 9 years, across MENA and in Washington D.C. Within IFC’s Advisory Services pillar, Mahwesh managed corporate governance projects. This entailed preparing transformation roadmaps for listed companies, financial institutions, family-owned companies, and SMEs, based on diagnostics and macro- and micro-level data analyses. Mahwesh began her career as an Assistant Director at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Pakistan and immediately prior to joining IMD, she was working in Geneva as a Senior Manager Governance at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
At IMD since 2019, Mahwesh has been supporting IMD faculty through research, diagnostics and delivery of advisory projects, focusing on qualitative analyses across business domains.
Mahwesh holds an MPhil in Management Studies from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge (UK), and a Bachelors (Hons) in Business Administration from the National University of Sciences and Technology (Pakistan).

Mrs. Kemanian is Director, Business Transformation Initiative and a founding Director of Latitude, a strategy-consulting firm based in Lausanne. Her work focuses on corporate and business strategy, and sustainable…

Mrs. Kemanian is Director, Business Transformation Initiative and a founding Director of Latitude, a strategy-consulting firm based in Lausanne. Her work focuses on corporate and business strategy, and sustainable development. Mrs. Kemanian has collaborated with IMD for 15 years prior to this role, supporting Faculty in the design and delivery of strategy programs with top teams and in academic research. She also contributes to Executive Education programs at the University of Lausanne (Executive MBA) and the HEC School of Business Paris, where she has lectured on Sustainability and led an Executive MBA Elective Module on Creating Value through Sustainability and Accelerating Growth in Established Businesses.
She is also an advisor to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) sustainable value chains and acts as a consultant to the United Nations’ International Trade Center (WTO-UNCTAD), advising governments, industry organizations and SMEs in developing countries on trade competitiveness and export strategy.
Prior to founding Latitude, Mrs. Kemanian was Global Marketing Director at the McBride Co. –a global strategy and investor relations consulting firm – managing projects across Europe, Australia, Latin America and the US, based in New York, London and Madrid. Previously, she held leadership roles in strategy, marketing and corporate communications for Santander Bank and Coca-Cola in Latin America.
Mrs. Kemanian is a DBA Candidate at Cranfield University, holds an Executive MBA from the HEC School of Business in Paris (France) and a degree in International Relations from the University of the Republic, Montevideo (Uruguay).
She has authored and contributed to articles and books on strategy, transformation, sustainability, bottom of the pyramid markets and export strategy.
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