IMD Pathfinder®

Goutam Challagalla is Professor of Strategy and Marketing at IMD. Prior to IMD, he spent 20 years as a professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Professor Challagalla also worked as Principal at The Monitor Group, a strategy consulting company founded by Michael Porter. His teaching, consulting, and research focuses on strategy with a focus on digital transformation, business-to-business commercial management, value-based pricing, sales management, distribution channels, and customer and service excellence. At IMD, he is Faculty Director of the Digital Marketing Strategy (DMS) program and several custom programs for B2B, B2C, and Pharmaceutical industry clients. In addition, he runs an annual event for Chief Marketing Officers, which is attended by the CMOs of firms across Europe.

He has worked with clients in a variety of industries including life sciences, agribusiness, technology/semi-conductors, manufacturing and chemicals industries, telecom, health care, FMCG, and professional services firms. The companies he has worked with include 3M, Accenture, Applied Materials, AT&T, AXA, Cargill, Cargotec, Coesia, Endress and Hauser, Ernst and Young, GE, Gea, HSBC, IBM, Illinois Tool Works, Kone, Novo Nordisk, Prudential, RHR International, Tetra Pak, thyssenkrupp, Turner Broadcasting, UPS, and Zurich. He worked with these clients on issues such as strategy issues, including digital strategy, market strategy, go-to-market channel design, marketing implementation, pricing, and sales effectiveness.

His research has been published in top marketing and management journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation Award at UT-Austin, the Decision Sciences Institute's best paper award, American Marketing Association's best Services Paper award, and the Maynard Award, which is given to the best paper in the Journal of Marketing (2015). He has won the E. Roe Stamps Excellence in Teaching Award and the Core MBA Professor Teaching Award at Georgia Tech. He serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Marketing and Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.

Professor Challagalla's undergraduate degree is from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. His MBA is from Arizona State University and his Ph.D. is from the University of Texas in Austin.

Carlos Cordon is a Professor of Strategy and Supply Chain Management.

Professor Cordon's areas of interest are digital value chains, supply and demand chain management, digital lean and process management.

Carlos Cordon is currently developing research and cases in the following areas: the digital journey of traditional companies, digital innovation in value chains, industry 4.0, digital lean, applications of big data in different spaces (healthcare, transportation and FMCG). He is the author of numerous articles and case studies in these fields, and over the past few years has won various prizes for his cases and articles on supply chain management, outsourcing, and process management.

He has been listed among the Case Center's top-40 best-selling case authors for 2020/21

Professor Cordon is also a consultant to multinational companies in the electronics, food, chemical, pharmaceutical, car, and other industries. He has designed and directed numerous executive development programs in the areas of digital and strategy journeys, supply chain management and sourcing.

Professor Cordon studied civil engineering at the Escuela Politecnica de Barcelona and holds a PhD in Management from INSEAD. Prior to the completion of his schooling, he was Manager in the manufacturing and distribution consulting group of Accenture, and later MIS Manager of Grupo Español General Cable (now a subsidiary of BICC).

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 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 economist and political scientist specializing in social innovation, corporate social responsibility and sustainable finance with more than 20 years of consultancy, research and teaching experience, working with academic institutions, multinational corporations and international organizations. She is the holder of the elea Chair for Social Innovation.

In her research, Vanina is interested in studying and fostering the application of innovative, practical, sustainable and inclusive market-oriented approaches that aspire to change the world by eliminating the root causes of social ills. Her research focuses on social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, impact investing and ESG Integration/sustainable finance. She also applies a gender lens in all her research projects. She seeks to understand the social innovation environment through a holistic approach that examines both the supply (entrepreneurs and corporates) and demand side of social innovation (society but also investors).

In November 2020, Farber co-authored with Peter Wuflli the book “The elea Way: a Learning Journey towards Sustainable impact,” Routledge. The book summarizes insights from elea’s 15-year pioneering journey, from creating an investment organization, choosing purposeful themes, and sourcing opportunities, to partnering with entrepreneurs for impact creation. This 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. Using real-life examples, the book is aimed at entrepreneurs, investors, executives, philanthropists, policymakers, and anyone curious about entrepreneurship and inclusive capitalism.

Prior to coming to IMD, Vanina was Professor and Chair of Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Social Inclusion at Universidad del Pacífico, Peru, where she also was the Dean of the Graduate School of Business from 2014 to 2016. From 2005 to 2017 she was also an Adjunct Professor for IE Business School, Spain, where she taught Economic Environment and Country Analysis in blended programs and designed and co-directed the training course for professors “Leadership in Blended Education”.

Vanina has worked as a researcher and consultant for different international organizations and national institutions in Switzerland, Spain and Peru.

Vanina holds a Bachelor in Political Science from Universidad de Buenos Aires and an M.A. in Economics and PhD in business administration (economics) from the University of Memphis in the USA.

Professor Knut Haanaes is the Lundin Chair Professor of Sustainability at IMD. He was until recently the Dean of the Global Leadership Institute at the World Economic Forum. At IMD he teaches in many of the key programs, including the MBA, EMBA and other executive programs. His research interests are related to strategy, digital transformation and sustainability. In the area of strategy, he focuses on strategy styles, corporate renewal and business models. In sustainability, he examines topics such as the role of boards, effective cooperation for results and how to demonstrate proof of sustainability value. In the area of digital transformation, he has focused extensively on digital business models and developed a new approach for how to teach executives to learn programming and coding.

Professor 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. He is co-author of the bestselling book "Your Strategy Needs a Strategy" at Harvard Business Review Press, which has been translated into seven languages. He is also a TED speaker ("Two reasons companies fail – and how to avoid them") with more than 2 million views. 

Professor Haanaes was until 2016 a Senior Partner at The Boston Consulting Group. At BCG he served as the Global Leader of the Strategy Practice and at various times led the BCG offices in Geneva and Oslo. He also founded the BCG global sustainability initiative. Professor Haanaes has also been Executive Director of The Research Council of Norway, Chairman of BI Norwegian Business School and Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. He is a member of the CEO’s Sustainability Board at Carlsberg. He holds a MSc in Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH) and a PhD in Strategy from Copenhagen Business School (CBS).

Amit Joshi joined IMD as Professor of AI, Analytics and Marketing Strategy. He brings IMD extensive expertise in marketing management and strategy, advertising, digital media, data analytics and marketing accountability. He is Program Director of the open program Digital Analytics and the Director of the Digital Excellence Diploma.

Amit regularly interacts with a variety of corporate clients in several industries, including fintech, pharma, telecom, media, manufacturing, retailing, education and automobiles. He was previously a professor in the USA and has also worked for Cadbury India Ltd., a company that is now a part of the Mondelez International group.

Amit’s research, which focuses on long-run marketing strategy, analytics and marketing effectiveness has been published in top journals, including Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Culture and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. His research has twice won the MSI / H. Paul Root Award, for the best paper in the Journal of Marketing (2010 and 2015), in addition to the Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award (2006) for the MSI publication with the most long-term impact. His dissertation won an honorable mention in the 2004 Alden G. Clayton Dissertation Proposal Competition.

His research has also been extensively covered in the popular press and media, including NPR, CNN, NBC, Fox News, Bloomberg, Investor Relations Magazine, Science Daily and the Orlando Sentinel. Amit earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune, and then a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (P.G.D.M.) from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India. His Ph.D. is from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

PROFILE

Winter Nie’s expertise lies at the intersection of leadership and change management. 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. Her work focuses on the inherent tension between centralized power and localization, mature and emerging markets, technology push and market pull, internal and external focus, as well as short-term financial performance and long-term survival. Her work shows that the role of leadership is not to eliminate but skillfully navigate through these tensions into the future. She works with organizations on change at the individual, team, and organizational levels, looking beyond surface rationality into the unconscious forces below that shape the direction and speed of change.

Trained in business and psychodynamics, she uses both fields of knowledge to help the leadership team understand the team dynamics in the face of external and internal business challenges and how these forces affect organizational transformation.  

Winter also has in-depth knowledge of doing business in emerging markets, low-cost competition, innovation culture, and customer centricity.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Winter has worked with many global companies in different industries (engineering and technology, service and consulting professions, fast-moving consumer products, banking and financial sector, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, gaming, and the internet). She primarily works in three areas: Organizational transformational journeys; Strategic initiatives (such as customer-focused organization, moving from products to solutions, and operational/service excellence) and change initiatives that require senior executives’ engagement; Senior leadership development.

Winter primarily works with executive teams and senior leaders. In addition, she works with both western and Chinese companies on CEO and senior executive succession (with emphasis on development) by anchoring on the organizational goals and business requirements, leveraging her keen observations of the team dynamics and individual behaviors, deep insights into human nature, and skillful coaching. 

In addition to teaching and conducting research, Winter holds the position of the Dean of IMD China since 2016, responsible for business development and client relationships for the institute within the country. She has served as IMD’s regional director of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania (2016–2019). She sits on the boards of Opsis, Singapore and Valuesense Group, China. 

PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Winter is well published in both academic and practitioner-oriented journals. Her forthcoming book, “The Future of Global Retail: Learning from China's Retail Revolution” (2021), provides both macro- and micro-perspectives for a deep insight into what is happening in China’s new retail market, including its latest digital innovations and new business models. The book provides a new retail framework as a roadmap for global retail executives: the “Beyond” Value Chain Model (More on: https://www.chinanewretail.org/).

“In the Shadow of the Dragon: The Global Expansion of Chinese Companies – and How It Will Change Business Forever” (2012), profiles key Chinese players and provides insights into subtle yet powerful strategies used to gain market dominance, their approach to going global, and the Chinese way of innovation. “Made in China – Secrets of China's Dynamic Entrepreneurs” (2009), takes an insider's look at Chinese entrepreneurs' path to success and offers insights on how MNCs could compete and/or work with them.  

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.