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Happy 50th birthday Intel, you look a lot like the next Kodak

By Howard H. Yu

“I am easily a foot taller than Andy Grove. But whenever I was with him, I felt that he was the giant.” That’s what the bestselling Harvard business professor, Clayton Christensen, wrote about...

Cracking the millennial code

By Jennifer Jordan, Pascal Wicht

For the last five years, the influence of Millennials (people born approximately between 1980 and 2000) in the workplace has put pressure on many leaders and their organizations. But...

Nostalgia is not a good idea

By Stéphane J. G. Girod

Elon Musk took the business community by surprise when he said he had secured financing steps to take Tesla private. This morning, the Financial Times reveals that actually, the board has only...

The importance of the person effect on your leadership

By George Kohlrieser

Jackie has an important message to communicate. She needs to generate buy-in from the group. She delivers what she thinks is a compelling message. The response is rather tepid at best. Colleagues...

How global skin care company Beiersdorf onboards new managers

Beiersdorf AG is a German skin care company based in Hamburg, Germany. Its brands include Labello, La Prairie, Nivea and more. Founded in 1882, the company has over 18,000 employees and has a market...

The hidden cost of cost-to-serve

By Ralf W. Seifert with Richard Markoff.

Every supply chain executive has had the frustrating experience of witnessing inefficient practices in their fulfillment operations. One of ours was during a tour of a consumer product...

IMD MBA announces the winner of the “Create our Future” Challenge

In the search for India’s brightest and best, IMD organized the IMD MBA “Create Our Future” Challenge, a one-day intense think-in where participants engaged in groups to brainstorm how society...

IMD MBA selects MBA Class of 1976 Merit Scholarship holder

Every year at IMD, 90 promising young business leaders come together in the MBA class, are taken to their limits and come out ready to take on the world. The MBAs also make friends for life during...

Legacy thinking is transforming us into can't do guys

By William A. Fischer

After more than 150 years of creating electric light, heavier-than-air, flying machines, communications systems that span the world, enormous computer power that fits in our pockets, vaccines that...

“The IMD EMBA taught me where to play and how to win”

Andreas Wallnöfer is an expert in pharmaceutical medicine and after joining Roche's R&D department in the 1990’s, he rose through the ranks to become a member of the global R&D leadership where...

How to navigate a leadership transition

IMD’s program The First 90-Days is an interactive, 2-day learning journey, where executives in new leadership positions diagnose the situations they have inherited, define strategic direction...

Enriching collective experience through sharing

High Performance Leadership (HPL) Alumni gathered for the first time in Finland recently to set the basis of the HPL community in the country. The event took place in Helsinki’s Biomedicum...

30 years of competitiveness research

By Stéphane Garelli

"Dear colleague, nations do not compete, only companies do: forget about your idea of competitiveness of nations!" This advice from a renowned professor a little over 30 years ago was a bit...

FBL as part of a longer journey towards leadership

Anne-Sophie, Elvis and Stefano have all attended IMD's FBL program, which prepares participants for successful general management. The program essentially addresses the transition of moving to...

GDPR isn’t enough to protect us in an age of smart algorithms

By Howard H. Yu

Europe’s new privacy law comes with teeth. Within hours of the General Data Protection Law (GDPR) coming into effect, an Austrian privacy campaigner used the new EU legislation to file a legal...

Discovering oneself as a leader

By participating in the TBL program, Anne Rigault was able to discover her own leadership style and test it out on her peers

IMD Startup Competition 2018/2019 Special Edition

On behalf of IMD, we are pleased to announce the winners of the IMD Startup Competition 2018/19 Special Edition, who will begin work with our Executive MBA participants in November, and accompany...

To indulge in protectionism (you should first know the "true" nationality of products)

By Stéphane Garelli

Professor Stéphane Garelli discusses protectionism and how the origin of products is difficult to discern in today's globalized world in light of ongoing tough trade rhetoric between the US and China.

An inside look at OWP

IMD just wrapped up its signature program Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP). OWP is the only program of its kind; executives can customize their week to fit their interests and needs as well...

How transition programs accelerate executive onboarding and integration

By Michael D. Watkins

In “Onboarding Isn’t Enough,” a 2017 Harvard Business Review article co-authored with Mark Byford and Lena Triantogiannis from #EgonZehnder, we showed that many companies think they are doing a good...

IMD EMBAs rewarded for outstanding business cases on LinkedIn Learning and the Apple Watch

Two teams of IMD EMBA participants recently won awards in the 2017 John Molson MBA International Case competition. The IMD case: ''Will LinkedIn Learning Disrupt the Education Landscape?'' took...

Jebsen & Jessen Family Enterprise: Masters of entrepreneurial partnerships

By Benoit F. Leleux with Marta Widz.

Receiving one of the most prestigious accolades for "excellence in family business" was a memorable moment for Hans Michael Jebsen and Heinrich Jessen – the two principal shareholders of Jebsen ...

Talent competitiveness and leadership quality

By Arturo Bris with Christos Cabolis, José Caballero.

Public policies can strongly influence the quality of leadership capabilities and competencies available in a particular country. For example, policies that increase education expenditure...

Embrace digital - make your strategy process more engaging!

By Knut Haanaes

A few years back the author was involved in an exercise where the strategy processes of a large set of leading global firms were observed. These were all companies you would expect to be...