The protest of Greenpeace against the deep sea disposal of the Brent Spar lead to a major consumer boycott against Shell. Within weeks, Shell suffered a significant loss of market share in Central Europe and faced protests from the highest political leaders across Europe. Despite all this Shell continues towing the platform to its planned disposal site in the Atlantic. Meanwhile at sea strong fights are taking place between Shell and Greenpeace.
Understanding and influencing stakeholders
Summary
Senior leaders rarely get their most important work done by issuing orders. A CTO cannot compel a partner firm, a dean cannot order a faculty to embrace a curriculum, a ministry cannot be forced to share data. On the questions that matter, outcomes depend on people with agendas and loyalties of their own. This note details a two-part discipline for understanding and influencing stakeholders. The diagnostic section asks who can affect the outcome, where their influence comes from and how things look from their side. It challenges common intuitions: coalitions beat individuals, intensity beats headcount, friendships are not alliances, and the fiercest resistance defends identity and legacy, so no concession will buy it off. Tools include the influence-alignment matrix, network mapping, listening tours, decision archaeology and force-field analysis. The strategic section converts diagnosis into movement, i.e. how to: frame each ask in the currency the audience values, sequence conversations so support accumulates before the decisive meeting, secure small commitments and avoid reactive coalition building, where a leader's own defensiveness unites opponents who agree on nothing else. Written for leaders in business, universities, government and non-profits, the note compares stakeholder management challenges across sectors and closes with a transparency test separating influence from manipulation. A companion exercise (IMD-2789-E) turns the frameworks into a plan for a live challenge.
Reference
IMD-2789
Copyright
©2026
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Available Languages
English
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Lead when you’re not the expert: Turn team doubts into trust
Summary
Part 2: Team doubts - learn diagnostics to pinpoint sources, build trust, and enlist supporters for stronger, shared leadership.
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A thread of hope: Gender lens due diligence on Bankamoda
Summary
The Bankamoda case looks at due diligence in the impact investing context. The protagonist, Estefanía Abello, is a Colombia-based senior associate at the Swiss AlphaMundi Group (AMG), an impact first but very commercially minded impact investor that invests in Africa and Latin America. Since 2017, AMG had been integrating gender analysis throughout its investment process. The case opens with Abello having completed the due diligence and considering her recommendation to the AMG Investment Committee on whether to invest in Bankamoda, a women-founded, women-led fintech offering loans to the underbanked micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the apparel and textile industry in Columbia. While this startup fit the profile gender lens investing perspective, the investment also carried significant risks. Students assume the role of Abello and need to balance impact and financial considerations and consider risk mitigation strategies as they make a recommendation. Through this case, students can experience a real impact investing due diligence, understand gender lens investing, explore the layers of considerations needed to build a compelling investment case and simulate how best to present proposals to an investment committee.
Reference
IMD-7-2516
Copyright
©2026
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Bankamoda
Industry
Finance and Insurance, Investment Management;Finance and Insurance, Financial Services
Available Languages
English
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Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
As sustainability reporting rules are diluted, the real test for CFOs begins
Summary
Even as sustainability reporting rules are diluted, investors are using AI to turn nonfinancial disclosures and data into valuation insights. Florian Hoos examines what this means for CFOs and why companies cannot rely on extensive disclosures to ...
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What type of sustainability approach does your business have?
Summary
Over years of research into hundreds of companies, we've found that businesses fall into recognizable patterns, or mindsets, based on two simple variables: how much they invest in sustainability beyond what regulation requires and how broad or nar...
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AI and the CSO: 7 ways to drive competitive advantage
Summary
The role of the chief sustainability officer (CSO) has moved from the margins to the center of corporate strategy. Here are seven ways to harness AI to embed sustainability and drive growth.
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AI and the CSO: 7 ways to drive competitive advantage
Summary
The role of the chief sustainability officer (CSO) has moved from the margins to the center of corporate strategy. Here are seven ways to harness AI to embed sustainability and drive growth.
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Sustainability isn’t the reason people buy
Summary
Here is a question worth considering next time you go to the supermarket: when was the last time you bought something primarily because it was sustainable? Not just sustainable along with everything else you cared about. But sustainable as the lea...
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Clean winners, you don’t need to change your customers
Summary
There is a belief embedded deep in most corporate sustainability strategies: if we just communicated better and showed customers the science and the stakes around our green products, more of them would come around to buying them (even if they were...
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How China’s energy transition is reshaping global business
Summary
China’s energy transition is creating new sources of market power. Mark Greeven and Sophie Liu explain what it means for global business.
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