Hosted by Stefan Michel, Professor of Marketing and Dean of Faculty and Research, the event honored faculty, researchers, editors, and all those whose contributions bring award-winning cases to the classroom.
“We are thrilled to be back in Lausanne to celebrate IMD’s success,” said Vicky Lester, CEO of The Case Centre, who presented the awards. “IMD’s case work has a remarkable global reach, and we’re proud to recognize their contribution to advancing the case method in management education worldwide.”
Four IMD cases were recognized in distinct award categories:
Outstanding Case Writer: AMAG: Creating its own future in a disrupted automotive industry, authored by Stefan Michel, Daniel Gerber, Esther Lind, Vikas Munjal, David Rivière, and Stephan Thalmann, won for its examination of AMAG’s strategic transformation in the face of electrification, digital disruption, and workforce transition.
Strategy and General Management: Future-proofing HEINEKEN: The EverGreen strategy, by Niccolò Pisani and Inès Augier, was recognized for its exploration of how HEINEKEN’s CEO is steering the company through post-pandemic uncertainty to build long-term value.
Outstanding Compact Case: Not so black and white: Grupo Inca’s black alpaca dilemma, co-authored by Vanina Farber and Shih-Huan Chang, along with Carolina Duran Silva, Baris Silahcioglu, and Hugo ten Zijthoff, was awarded for its concise and nuanced look at sustainability, ethics, and stakeholder expectations.
Overall Award: Nespresso: Strategy reset for growth – The youth market by Kamran Kashani and Goutam Challagalla. The case explores how Nespresso must reinvent its strategy to engage younger consumers, as its traditional customer base ages and declines. This marks the sixth time an IMD case has earned the Overall Award, following wins in 1993, 1995, 2002, 2014, and 2022.
During the ceremony, Stefan Michel shared insights into why case writing is central to executive learning: “Cases help leaders get out what they already know and force them to switch perspectives. The more senior you are, the more important it becomes to embrace ambiguity. It’s not about the final product that we’re interested in, it’s about the thinking process.”
“These written cases are possible thanks to our proximity to practice,” said IMD President David Bach. “As much as these awards are the achievements of the individual authors, the editors, the entire team, they’re also the success of a model of management education that we have developed here at IMD that is distinctive.”
In 2024 alone, over 233,000 IMD cases were sold globally, and 10 featured on The Case Centre’s bestselling lists – a testament to the school’s case writing excellence.
Learn more about IMD’s case writing here.
