Preston Bottger is Professor Emeritus of Leadership and General Management. He has combined teaching, research, and consulting in leadership development and strategy execution for over 25 years.
He was director of IMD’s Mobilizing People, a two-week leadership program, for eight years. His consulting work in Europe includes a global asset management firm, and several companies in manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries.
Before joining IMD, Bottger was Professor of the Practice of Management at The Fuqua School of Business Duke University (1990 -1998), holding the positions of Executive Director of the North Carolina Family Business Forum and Executive Director of the Hartman Center for Mid-Sized Companies. At Duke, he was extensively involved in executive education with duties both in teaching and program direction. Previously, he was on faculty at the Australian Graduate School of Management, University of New South Wales, Sydney (1980-1989), and was Founding Director of the Graduate Management Qualification, a distance learning MBA-level program for engineers and scientists around Australia.
His work in the USA, either as a consultant or as a program director in executive education, included projects for AT&T, ABB, Lafarge, Wachovia Bank, Wolseley, Organon Teknika, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson. In Australia, his consulting in leadership development included work with QANTAS, Westpac, Ampol, EXXON, Australian Telecom, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce, and the Australian Treasury. For many years, he lectured on leadership and decision making at the Joint Services Staff College and at the Royal Australian Navy Staff College.
Bottger holds a PhD in management from the Australian Graduate School of Management, and a Master of Engineering Science and a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) from the University of New South Wales. He has won the Outstanding Teacher Award presented by Duke University’s Weekend Executive MBA class, and the Outstanding Paper Award in Management Development presented by the US Academy of Management. He is the author of numerous research articles in international journals on the topics of problem solving in groups, leadership, and motivation, and is the lead author of Managing People (CMRD, Sydney).
He has served as editor (OB/Operations) of the Australian Journal of Management and is on the editorial board of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Human Resources Management. He also edited the book Leading in the Top Team, which provides practical advice based on the actions and decisions of real leaders in a range of roles and situations. His current research interests are focused on how individuals develop various capacities for leadership in the context of their organization’s strategy.