IMD business school for management and leadership courses
Oversight, guidance, and integrity
Our President is Jean-François Manzoni. The President is appointed by the Supervisory Board. Under his leadership, the Executive Committee proposes IMD’s business goals, financial targets, and annual budgets within the strategic guidelines agreed with the Supervisory Board.
The President proposes the structure and composition of his Executive Committee. He regularly informs the Supervisory Board about developments, issues, actions, and results and he delivers an annual activity report to the Foundation Board. A quality assurance strategy describes how the Executive Committee, faculty and staff strive to over-achieve relative to the expectations of participants and stakeholders
The Foundation Board is our ultimate governing body. Together with the Supervisory Board, it ensures that IMD remains relevant to the evolving needs of the global corporate community. These two boards are comprised of key stakeholders – including CEOs from companies with which IMD has strong learning partnerships, leaders of academic institutions, alumni, and faculty.
Jean-François Manzoni is President and Nestlé Chaired Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD. His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations, and corporate governance.
President at IMD
Jean-François Manzoni is President and Nestlé Chaired Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD. His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations, and corporate governance. In recent years he has been concentrating increasingly on ways to ensure leadership programs have lasting impact, particularly through the use of technology-mediated approaches.
At an organizational level, Manzoni studies the content of change (including the use of levers such as strategy, structure, and systems), the management of the change process, and the role of leaders therein. His work in this area has appeared in several books, articles, and over 30 cases – four of which received Case of the Year awards from The Case Centre (formerly the European Foundation for Management Development or the European Case Clearing House). He also acted as a content expert in the development of The Change Pro Simulation®, a groundbreaking computer-based change management simulation.
At an individual level, he studies how leaders can create a caring, high-performance work environment. This stream of research has led to several articles and a book entitled The Set-Up to Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail (with Jean-Louis Barsoux). The book, which builds on Manzoni’s and Barsoux’s initial Harvard Business Review article introducing the term “set-up-to-fail syndrome”, received two Book of the Year awards, and is discussed in undergraduate, MBA, and executive development programs all over the world.
On the corporate governance side, Manzoni focuses on interpersonal dynamics within the boardroom and between management and the board. His research examining the impact of interpersonal dynamics on increasingly diverse boards of directors received the Research Award on Leadership and Corporate Governance from the Association of Executive Search Consultants.
A Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Directors, he currently serves on the board of Keppel Corporation, an international diversified group listed on the Singapore stock exchange (where he also chairs the nominations committee and is a member of the remuneration committee). He previously served on the Boards of AACSB International (the world’s largest business education alliance) and Singapore’s Civil Service College, among others.
Alongside these lifelong interests, Manzoni has also been increasingly interested in closing the growing managerial “knowing-doing gap”, i.e., the gap between what managers kind of know they should be doing and the extent to which they actually behave that way in practice. One aspect of this quest, accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis, has been exploring the role that technology can play in helping to design and deliver interventions that a) produce significant and lasting individual impact, and b) can be scaled effectively and efficiently to large numbers of individuals to build a real capability within the organization.
The recipient of several awards for excellence in teaching, Manzoni is Co-director of IMD’s signature program Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP), and teaches on the High Performance Leadership (HPL) open program and Executive MBA (EMBA) course.
He re-joined IMD in 2016, having already served on the IMD faculty between 2004 and 2010 when he was Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development and Director of their Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives (BPSE).
He previously served on the faculty of INSEAD in Singapore and Fontainebleau where he founded, and for four years directed, the PwC Research Initiative on High-Performance Organizations. He later directed their Global Leadership Centre, supporting their leadership-related coaching, teaching, and research activities throughout the world.
A citizen of Canada and France, Manzoni received his doctorate from Harvard Business School. He had earlier graduated from L’École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal and worked with Ernst and Young in Montreal before receiving an MBA from McGill University.
Manzoni is a frequent keynote speaker and discussion partner for business leaders, including through the IMD CEO Dialogue Series in which he holds frank and insightful discussions with CEOs of various organizations. He has also performed consulting, top management team support, and leadership development work for several international organizations, which has led him to work in more than 30 countries over the years.
He currently serves on a number of International Advisory Panels of industry bodies (e.g., digitalswitzerland), academic institutions (e.g., EHL Hospitality Business School), and corporations (e.g., Novartis Culture Leadership Advisory Board).
The President proposes the structure and composition of his Executive Committee. He regularly informs the Supervisory Board about developments, issues, actions, and results and he delivers an activity report annually to the Foundation Board.
The members of the Executive Committee include Faculty members responsible for high-priority strategic tasks and senior staff who are leading key functions.
Anna Dunand is Chief Business Development Officer at IMD. She leads all corporate business development activities including custom programs, the European field sales force, Nexus, and all sponsoring and membership activities.
She joined IMD in 2004 and has held various positions including research associate and learning manager, where she worked with faculty in delivery, before moving to business development in 2010.
Before joining IMD, Dunand worked with Accenture in Zürich, Switzerland, as a consultant in the financial services sector in the areas of change management, human performance, business development, and business processes.
She is a former golfer and represented Sweden in numerous international competitions, including 10 years as a member of the Swedish National team.
Anna holds a Master of Science in International Business from Göteborg University, Sweden, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, from Oklahoma State University, USA. She is also an IMD alumna having completed High Performance Leadership and Advanced High Performance Leadership.
Delia Fischer is Chief Communication Officer at IMD. She oversees IMD’s external, internal, social media, and multimedia communications. She has been a member of the IMD Executive Committee’s top management team since January 2020.
Under Fischer’s guidance, IMD is rapidly developing and expanding its existing communications program and platforms to build on its existing reputation for thought leadership excellence, engagement, and innovation.
Before joining IMD, Fischer was Global Head of Corporate Communications for The Adecco Group, the world’s leading HR solutions partner, managing an international team from their headquarters in Zurich. She also served as FIFA’s Head of Media during a 15-year career overseeing communications for FIFA World Cups as well as the global football governance crisis. She is a trained journalist.
Fischer holds a Master’s in business science with a major in sports management from the University of Economics (WU) in Vienna. She is also an IMD alumna, having completed IMD’s High Performance Leadership program.
Louis Leclézio is Chief Digital and Customer Experience Officer at IMD. He oversees IMD’s technology, operations, and marketing, and is primarily responsible for enhancing customer and employee experience through digital transformation.
Under his leadership, IMD has expanded its technology-enabled pedagogical innovation, ensuring this is strongly embedded and perfectly supported by IMD’s IT infrastructure.
Leclézio rejoined IMD in 2020, after first holding leadership roles in IT from 1997-2008. From 2008, he spent 11 years at Bunge, a leader in agribusiness, food, and ingredients, with more than 20,000 employees in 40 countries, where he successfully defined the global IT strategy and roadmap and led the company’s IT & data transformation programs. He led the multicultural team responsible for implementing process automation to enable the integration and harmonization of business units.
He is a graduate of Gonzaga University in the US and is an IMD alumnus, having completed IMD’s High Performance Leadership program.
Peggy Le Roux is Chief Finance and Administrative Officer at IMD. Joining in November 2019 as Chief Finance and Administrative Officer, she leads the Financial and Internal Controlling, Accounting, Tax, Treasury, and Campus Services. She is also the secretary of the Audit Committee (AFRC).
Le Roux came to IMD after spending 15 years at Richemont, including 10 years at Jaeger-LeCoultre where she took on the role of Chief Finance Officer and became a member of the Maison Executive Committee in 2011. Before Richemont, she worked with EY for seven years in Paris and London.
Le Roux is a graduate of the ESCP Europe Business School as well as an IMD Alumnus, having attended its Leading Digital Business Transformation and High Performance Leadership programs. She has also attended a customized program with Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Executive Committee.
Laurent Tranchida is Chief People Officer at IMD. He oversees the recruitment and retention of IMD’s most important asset: its people.
He joined the institution in 2018 after a long career in corporate human resources and has been a member of the top management team at IMD since its Executive Committee was established in January 2020.
Tranchida came to IMD after more than a decade at Sidel, a world leader in FMCG packaging, where he held a variety of human resources leadership roles in Paris, Le Havre, and Zurich. Before Sidel, he spent 15 years at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen in Paris, where he held a number of functions spanning HR, training and internal communications, technical publishing, and client services.
He holds two Master’s degrees, one in management and human resources development from École des Ressources Humaines, IGS-RH in Paris, and another in executive coaching from Cergy-Pontoise University. He is also an IMD alumnus, having completed the High Performance Leadership and Orchestrating Winning Performance programs.
IMD Supervisory Board and Foundation Board
Learn more about our board members
Michel Demaré is Chairman of the Foundation and Supervisory Boards at IMD and Chair of the Board at AstraZeneca Plc. He also chairs the board at Nomoko AG and is a member of the supervisory boards at Vodafone Group Plc and Louis-Dreyfus Company International Holdings B.V.
He was Chair at Syngenta AG from 2013 until the Company was sold to ChemChina in 2017, and was Vice Chair at UBS Group AG from 2009 until 2019. He was also the Chair at SwissHoldings from 2013 to 2015.
Before his supervisory career, Demaré was Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President at ABB from 2005 to 2013, serving in addition as the company’s President of Global Markets between late 2008 and March 2011. He also served as ABB’s acting Chief Executive Officer during most of 2008. Previously he had been Chief Financial Officer Europe at Baxter International Inc. He joined Baxter in 2002 after 18 years at the Dow Chemical Company, where he held a number of Finance and Strategy roles in Europe (including Switzerland) and the USA.
He holds a license in applied economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and an MBA from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in Belgium.
Hanne de Mora is Vice Chairperson of the IMD Foundation and Supervisory Boards at IMD and Co-Founder of a-connect, which she created in 2002. With eight offices and more than 2,200 certified independent professionals, a-connect helps companies execute critical projects by leveraging its network of specialists. Based in Zurich, she takes an active role in client service with a specific focus on advising senior leaders on strategy and corporate governance.
De Mora is a Non-Executive Director at Nestlé (chair of the Sustainability Committee), a Member of the Board of Directors at AB Volvo, and is also Chair at Microcaps AG. In the past, she has been a Member of the Board of Directors at Sandvik, where she held the Audit Committee chair, and Metso Outotec Oyj. She has also served as a non-executive director at Telenor, Tomra, and Valora.
Prior to a-connect, de Mora was a partner at McKinsey & Company based in Switzerland. She started her career as a credit analyst with Den Norske Creditbank in Luxemburg and subsequently held brand management and controller roles at Procter & Gamble.
She holds an MBA from IESE, Barcelona, and a Bachelor’s degree in business from HEC, Lausanne.
Gilbert Achermann is Chair at Straumann, the global leader in implant dentistry, and a board member at Julius Bär, the private bank, Ypsomed, a self-care solutions company, and Vifor, a pharma company. In addition, he is a jury member at Venture Kick and a member of the board at the Swiss MedTech association.
Before becoming Chair, Achermann served as CFO and CEO at Straumann. His previous positions include Chair and Co-CEO of the Vitra Group, a family-owned furniture and shopfitting company. Prior to that, he held positions as Chair at Siegfried, a listed pharma service company, and Vice Chair at the Moser Group, a privately owned luxury watch company. He began his career at UBS in investment banking.
He holds an EMBA from IMD (2000) and joined IMD in July 2016 as Executive-in-Residence.
Hana Al Rostamani is Group CEO & Head of Personal Banking at First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). As the only female Group CEO of a major UAE-headquartered bank and publicly listed corporation within the UAE, Al Rostamani is recognized for being a change leader and for her forward-thinking vision with a focus on embedding a culture of innovation, diversity, and inclusion in her leadership.
A seasoned C-suite executive with more than 20 years’ experience in banking and financial services, she previously served as Deputy Group CEO and Head of Personal Banking at FAB, responsible for leading the transformation of FAB’s consumer bank, instilling a customer and digital-first mindset.
A graduate of George Washington University in the US, Al Rostamani is currently Chair of the Global Council on the Sustainable Development Goals, with a key interest in Development Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. She is also a member of MasterCard Advisory and has served as an independent director in Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Company (Du) and Vice Chair at the Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Services.
Her most recent accolade includes her nomination in Forbes Middle East, being ranked third as featured in the Middle East’s Power Business’ Women 2021 list.
Liselott Kilaas is Chair at Coala Life. She has over 20 years’ international top management experience, resulting in a proven track record in strategic and operational performance development across a broad spectrum of businesses. She has spent more than a decade in the healthcare sector and was CEO at Aleris from 2013 to 2017.
Kilaas has extensive non-executive board and committee experience including central banking, investment funds, telecom, technology, branded consumer goods, healthcare, medical technology, aluminum, media, and shipping. Her first two board assignments were with the Central Bank of Norway (also responsible for the Norwegian Sovereign Fund), a position she held for 12 years, and Telenor, a position she held for 10 years.
She is currently working with companies that are listed, private equity owned, and governmental owned. She is currently a member of the board of directors at Norsk Hydro ASA, Orkla ASA, Ambea AB, Peab AB, Nobina AB, Norwegian Sovereign Fund, and Chair of the Board of Directors at Coala Life, Implantica AG, and Avonova AB.
She has a Master’s in mathematical statistics from the University of Oslo, Norway, and is an IMD MBA.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp is Executive Chair at LEGO Brand Group and Kirkbi A/S. He also holds positions as a member of the board at Starbucks and Merlin Entertainments Limited, and as Chair at BrainPOP.
Knudstorp joined the LEGO Group in 2001 and was appointed President and CEO in 2004.
He began his career at McKinsey & Company in 1998 and holds an MSc and PhD in economics management from Aarhus University in Denmark.
Damien O’Brien is a non-executive director at Ardagh Group and St Vincent’s Health Australia. He has enjoyed a global career with roles in China, Sydney, Paris, London, and Zurich. He retired from global management consulting and executive search firm Egon Zehnder in 2018 after 30 years, including six years as CEO and the last eight years as Chair.
Before this, he held various management positions at Red Rock Leisure, a family-owned group of companies in Australia, and worked as an associate with McKinsey. His current boards include Ardagh Metal Packaging SA in the US, Ardagh Group SA, and the Advisory Board of Conduit Funds Management in Sydney.
O’Brien holds an MBA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales. He also has a diploma in theology and philosophy from Saint Columban’s College in Sydney, which included two years of study and community work in Mindanao, the Philippines.
He has been a member of the supervisory board at IMD since 2008.
Woods Staton is Executive Chair at Arcos Dorados (NYSE: ARCO), the world’s largest independent McDonald’s franchisee. Arcos Dorados operates or franchises more than 2,200 restaurants, with over 100,000 employees and greater than US$3bn in revenue across 20 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Often recognized as one of the best companies to work for in Latin America, every year Arcos Dorados generates first-time, formal employment opportunities for tens of thousands of young people in the region.
Born in Medellín, Colombia, Staton’s business life has focused on consumer goods in Latin America. His grandfather founded Panamco, which became the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world with operations in seven Latin American countries. After many years in the family business, he branched out, starting his entrepreneurial career as McDonald’s joint venture partner in Argentina. He later served as President of McDonald’s South Latin America Division. He founded Arcos Dorados in 2007 when he led a consortium of investors in the purchase of McDonald’s Corporation’s operations in Latin America. In April 2011, Arcos Dorados executed a successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.
Staton is actively involved in several non-profit organizations. He is Co-Founder of Endeavor Argentina, promoting entrepreneurship, as well as a founding partner of Ashoka Argentina, a global organization committed to investing in innovative solutions through social entrepreneurship. He is a member of the Chair’s International Advisory Council of the Council of the Americas and currently serves as the Chair for the Latin American Program’s Advisory Board at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a think tank in Washington DC.
Su-Mei Thompson is CEO at Media Trust, a non-profit organization based in London that works with media industry partners to give charities, under-represented communities, and young people a stronger voice.
Thompson started her career as a corporate finance lawyer at Linklaters, before spending many years in leading media companies including The Walt Disney Company and the Financial Times. She was a member of the FT’s Global Management Board and Managing Director for Asia, before going on to be Co-Head of Christie’s Asia.
Her career in the non-profit sector began in 2007 when she became CEO at The Women’s Foundation Hong Kong. Under her leadership, The Women’s Foundation emerged as a leading NGO, known for its innovative and impactful community and mentoring programs and effective partnerships with multiple stakeholders. Thompson also founded the 30% Club’s Hong Kong chapter to advocate for more women on boards and TWF’s Male Allies HeForShe network. At TWF, Thompson started to make her mark as a leading advocate for gender equality on the international stage. She co-produced the award-winning documentary “She Objects” and was invited to discuss female media representation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Meanwhile, her TED talk ”Dying To Be Thin has attracted over 150,000 views.
Having previously served on Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission, in 2020, Thompson was appointed to the Board of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, the UK’s national human rights institution. She is also a Trustee at the Orwell Foundation, a Member of the English National Opera’s Insights Council, an Editorial Board Member for IMD’s I publication, and a Council Member of Cheltenham Ladies College, her alma mater.
A law graduate of Cambridge and Oxford, she was the first woman to make the Dean’s List for IMD’s MBA program and was recently named by IMD as one of its 50 MBA Laureates. She was also recognized by Charity Times on International Women’s Day 2022 as one of 15 women leaders making a difference and inspiring other leaders in the charity sector.
At their annual meeting each November, IMD Foundation Board members approve IMD’s overall strategic direction and financial results, and elect board members.
Michel Demaré is Chairman of the Foundation and Supervisory Boards at IMD and Chair of the Board at AstraZeneca Plc. He also chairs the board at Nomoko AG and is a member of the supervisory boards at Vodafone Group Plc and Louis-Dreyfus Company International Holdings B.V.
He was Chair at Syngenta AG from 2013 until the Company was sold to ChemChina in 2017, and was Vice Chair at UBS Group AG from 2009 until 2019. He was also the Chair at SwissHoldings from 2013 to 2015.
Prior to his supervisory career, Demaré was Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President at ABB from 2005 to 2013, serving in addition as the company’s President of Global Markets between late 2008 and March 2011. He also served as ABB’s acting Chief Executive Officer during most of 2008. Previously he had been Chief Financial Officer Europe at Baxter International Inc. He joined Baxter in 2002 after 18 years at the Dow Chemical Company, where he held a number of Finance and Strategy roles in Europe (including Switzerland) and the USA.
He holds a license in applied economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and an MBA from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in Belgium.
Hanne de Mora is Vice Chairperson of the IMD Foundation and Supervisory Boards and Co-Founder of a-connect, which she created in 2002. With eight offices and more than 2,200 certified independent professionals, a-connect helps companies execute critical projects by leveraging its network of specialists. Based in Zurich, she takes an active role in client service with a specific focus on advising senior leaders on strategy and corporate governance.
De Mora is a Non-Executive Director at Nestlé (chair of the Sustainability Committee), a Member of the Board of Directors at AB Volvo, and is also Chair at Microcaps AG. In the past, she has been a Member of the Board of Directors at Sandvik, where she held the Audit Committee chair, and Metso Outotec Oyj. She has also served as a non-executive director at Telenor, Tomra and Valora.
Prior to a-connect, de Mora was a partner at McKinsey & Company based in Switzerland. She started her career as a credit analyst with Den Norske Creditbank in Luxemburg, and subsequently held brand management and controller roles at Procter & Gamble.
She holds an MBA from IESE, Barcelona, and a Bachelor’s degree in business from HEC, Lausanne.
Peter Wuffli is Honorary Chair of IMD’s Foundation Board and Member of the Advisory Board at the elea Center. He is also the Founder and Chair of the elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization.
elea was established in 2006 with the purpose of fighting absolute poverty (i.e., less than US$3 daily income) through entrepreneurial means, and is a philanthropic impact investor in the fields of agricultural value chains, informal retail and last mile distribution, employable skill building, and digital solutions.
Wuffli also serves on the board at Sygnum, a digital asset bank in Zurich and Singapore, and is Vice Chair at the Zürich Opera House.
Previously, he was Partner at McKinsey & Company, CEO at UBS Group, and Chair at Partners Group (a global leader for private market investments listed at Zürich Stock Exchange) and IMD respectively.
Wuffli earned a PhD in economics from the University of St. Gallen. He regularly publishes articles and books on themes of globalization, ethics, impact investing, and leadership, including Inclusive Leadership – A Framework for the Global Era.
Gilbert Achermann is Chair at Straumann, the global leader in implant dentistry, and a board member at Julius Bär, the private bank, Ypsomed, a selfcare solutions company, and Vifor, a pharma company. In addition, he is a jury member at Venture Kick and member of the Board at the Swiss MedTech association.
Prior to becoming Chair, Achermann served as CFO and CEO at Straumann. His previous positions include Chair and Co-CEO of the Vitra Group, a family-owned furniture and shopfitting company. Prior to that he held positions as Chair at Siegfried, a listed pharma service company, and Vice Chair at the Moser Group, a privately owned luxury watch company. He began his career at UBS in investment banking.
He holds an EMBA from IMD (2000) and joined IMD in July 2016 as Executive-in-Residence.
Christoph Aeschlimann has been Head of Swisscom (Switzerland) Ltd and Chief Executive Officer at Swisscom Ltd since June 2022. He has a degree in computer science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and an MBA from McGill University, Canada.
He began his professional career as a software developer at financial services provider Odyssey. After a short period with innovation services provider Zühlke, he returned to Odyssey, where he held a number of management positions. He then joined software development company ERNI, where he worked in various managerial positions, initially as Managing Director Switzerland, then as CEO of the group.
Aeschlimann joined Swisscom in 2019 as Head of the IT, Network and Infrastructure division and member of the Group Executive Board.
Hana Al Rostamani is Group CEO & Head of Personal Banking at First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). As the only female Group CEO of a major UAE-headquartered bank and publicly listed corporation within the UAE, Al Rostamani is recognized for being a change leader and for her forward-thinking vision with a focus on embedding a culture of innovation and diversity and inclusion in her leadership.
A seasoned C-suite executive with more than 20 years’ experience in banking and financial services, she previously served as Deputy Group CEO and Head of Personal Banking at FAB, responsible for leading the transformation of FAB’s consumer bank, instilling a customer and digital-first mindset.
A graduate of George Washington University in the US, Al Rostamani is currently Chair of the Global Council on the Sustainable Development Goals, with a key interest in Development Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. She is also a member of MasterCard Advisory and has served as an independent director in Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Company (Du) and Vice Chair at the Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Services.
Her most recent accolade includes her nomination in Forbes Middle East, being ranked third as featured in the Middle East’s Power Business’ Women 2021 list.
Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko is President and CEO at Marimekko Corporation, the leading Finnish design house renowned for its bold prints and colors. She became President of the company in 2015 and became CEO a year later.
Her career at this fast-internationalizing creative company began in international PR. Prior to her current role, she acted as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) from 2014. From 2011, she also led the company’s marketing, communications and public relations.
Alahuhta-Kasko has an MSc in economics from the Helsinki School of Economics, a CEMS Master’s in international management from Groupe HEC Paris and Helsinki School of Economics, and she has completed further studies at both Harvard and IMD. She frequents as a guest lecturer and is a member of Aalto University Student Union’s (AYY) Honorary Council and Alumni Advisory Board of Aalto University School of Business.
She was elected as the Young Leader of the Year 2015 by the Junior Chamber International Finland and was the patron of the competition in 2018.
Abdulrahman Al Jadhai holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from King Saud University, and a PhD in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in the United States.
He Joined Elm in 2005, a leading Saudi-based company focusing on digitizing governments and enterprises, where he has been CEO since 2012.
Al Jadhai was Chair of the advisory board for the first health cluster in Riyadh, a board member at emerging technologies company Taibah Valley, a board member at biotech company Dammam Valley, and a board member at registration services company National Real Estate Registration.
He co-founded the first open-source group in Saudi and is a co-author of the Arabic book Open Source Software. He is interested in venture capital and digital startups.
Vinita Bali is Non-Executive Director and Member of the Board at Syngene International Ltd. She is a global business leader with extensive experience in leading large companies in both India and overseas. She has worked with eminent multinationals like the Coca-Cola Company and Cadbury Schweppes PLC in a variety of marketing, general management and chief executive roles in the UK, Nigeria, South Africa, Latin America, and the US, in addition to Britannia Industries Ltd in India.
In April 2014, Bali moved from a full-time operational role as MD and CEO at Britannia to pursue her wide-ranging interests in the corporate and development sectors. She is currently a Non-Executive Director on the Global Boards at Smith & Nephew plc and Bunge Limited and Chair of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Swiss foundation based in Geneva. She also served on the global board at Syngenta International AG from 2012 to 2017.
In India, Bali serves as a Non-Executive Director on the boards of CRISIL Ltd and Syngene International Limited, is a member of the board of governors at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and an advisory board member of PwC. She brings a global and pragmatic perspective to strategy, marketing, innovation, and operations, having worked across countries and continents with responsibility for global and regional roles.
She was among 27 global leaders appointed by the UN in 2012 to help improve maternal and child health as part of its SUN (Scaling up Nutrition) initiative and completed her term in 2016. She has been recognized in forums nationally and internationally and won several awards for her various contributions to business and society.
Bali has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Delhi and a master’s degree in management from the University of Bombay. She also pursued post-graduate studies in international business from Michigan State University.
Joan Beets is a partner at KennedyFitch, a boutique executive search and management consulting firm. She has 20 years’ HR experience within leading organizations in various industries including Saudi Aramco, The Adecco Group and Givaudan, and has worked and lived in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East in roles focused on HR strategy, change, and transformation.
She completed her MBA at IMD in 2012, winning the Welsh Women’s Award for best all-round female in the MBA class. She has been a volunteer coach and mentor for current and alumni MBAs since 2013, a member of the IMD Alumni Advisory Committee since 2018, and Chair of the Committee since 2021. She is the Alumni Representative on the IMD Foundation Board.
Martijn Brenninkmeijer is Chair of the Board at COFRA Holding AG, a position he has held since 2018. Brenninkmeijer has previously held the positions of CEO at COFRA Holding AG, CEO at C&A Europe, and CEO at Anthos.
He holds a BA in economics and philosophy from Georgetown University in Washington DC and an MBA (with Honors) from IMD Business School in Lausanne, where he also received the 1999 MBA Class Award.
Richard Carey is a Managing Member at Redwood Technology Ventures, an investment and advisory firm focused on opportunities in supply chain automation, which he co-founded in 2019.
Prior to Redwood, he was a partner at Permira, starting the firm’s business in the US in 2002. He was at times a member of the firm’s portfolio review committee and co-head of investments in the industrial and services sector. He joined Permira’s London office in 2000 and left the firm in 2018.
Carey started his career with Arthur Andersen (1986–1997) based in both Australia and the UK. From 1998 to 2000 he worked closely with a number of venture-backed companies in Europe, most notably AU System based in Sweden.
He has a graduate degree in economics and commerce from the University of Melbourne (1986) and a MBA (Honors) from IMD (1996). He is based in New York.
Boris Collardi started his career as an intern at Credit Suisse in Geneva in 1993. For 12 years he held various positions, including CFO of the Private Banking division and COO Europe, Middle East and North Africa. In 2006, he joined Bank Julius Baer as its COO and later became CEO of the Investment Solutions division. He was named CEO of Julius Baer Group and Bank in 2009.
Collardi has spent most of his career abroad, including five years in Asia, after working in London and a number of European countries. He was managing partner of the Pictet Group between June 2018 and September 2021.
He has held the following external mandates:
- Member of the Board – EFG International AG
- Member of the Board and the Committee of the Governing Board of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Bankers Association
- Member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
- Member of the Advisory Board of the Wealth Management Institute of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore
- Honorary Member of the Board of the INTERPOL Foundation for a Safer World
Jo Deblaere is owner of Blaarweyde and a former Chief Operating Officer at Accenture. He was responsible for leading the company’s business operations globally, executing business strategy, and ensuring company-wide operational excellence and had overall leadership responsibility for Accenture’s business in Europe, covering the company’s presence in more than 20 countries. In addition, he led enterprise risk management, working across the company to identify, assess, and actively manage enterprise risks. He also chaired Accenture’s Capital Committee and was a member of its Global Management Committee.
Before becoming COO in September 2009, Deblaere was Chief Operating Officer of Accenture’s outsourcing business globally, a position he had held since 2006. In this role he was instrumental in driving operational excellence across its $9 billion outsourcing business and in leading the outsourcing industrialization agenda.
From 2005 to 2006, he led Accenture’s global network of business process outsourcing delivery centers. From 2000 to 2005, he had overall responsibility for Accenture’s work with public-sector clients in Western Europe. He joined Accenture in 1985 and became a partner in 1996.
Deblaere represents the company as part of the BUSINESSEUROPE Corporate Advisory and Support Group. He is also Chair of the Board of Directors at Junior Achievement for Young Enterprise Europe and a member of the Board of Governors at Junior Achievement Worldwide.
Earlier in his career, he worked with numerous clients in a variety of industries including automotive, metals, energy, chemicals, media and entertainment, and public service. He holds a degree in business administration and information management from KU Leuven in Belgium.
Alain Dehaze is Chairman and board member at GGE and EIFFEL and former CEO at Adecco Group, the world’s leading workforce solutions partner best known for its international brands Adecco, Modis, Badenoch & Clark, Spring Professional, Lee Hecht Harrison, Pontoon, Adia, and YOSS.
Dehaze, a Belgian national, graduated as a commercial engineer at the ICHEC Brussels Management School before rising through the ranks at Henkel and ISS. He joined the workforce solutions sector in 2000, when he was appointed Managing Director at Creyf’s Interim in Belgium. His path took him to the CEO position at Solvus, COO at USG People – when the latter took over Solvus – and CEO at the Dutch staffing services company Humares between 2007 and 2009. He joined the Adecco Group in 2009 as member of the Executive Committee, responsible first for Northern Europe, then for the Group’s largest market France before taking on the CEO position in September 2015.
Dehaze plays an active role shaping the labor markets of tomorrow as a member of the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, board member at the Global Apprenticeship Network (GAN) and as Steward of the World Economic Forum Center for the New Economy and Society. Before becoming CEO at the Adecco Group, he also held board positions at sector level with the World Employment Confederation, including the vice presidency of the World Employment Confederation Europe (formerly EUROCIETT).
Jahangir Doongaji is CEO at Hilti. He has been a member of the Executive Board since 2014, being responsible for the Electric Tools & Accessories Business Area and Corporate Research (until end of 2021) and is the designated CEO successor as of January 2023.
Born and raised in India, Doongaji started his Hilti career in 2000, initially leading customer service in the Swiss market organization. He moved to corporate headquarters in Schaan in 2002 where he has since held various positions in different Business Units.
From 2006 to 2013, he headed the largest business unit, Power Tools & Accessories, before moving to the Executive Board. He has been leading a review of Hilti Group strategy since 2021.
Barbara Frei joined Schneider Electric in 2016 as Country President of Germany and expanded her scope to Zone President of DACH in 2017 (including Germany, Austria and Switzerland). In 2019, she was appointed Executive Vice President, Europe Operations and a member of the Executive Committee.
She started her career as a development project manager for motors and drives at ABB Schweiz AG. She held various senior management positions at ABB Group, including regional responsibility as Country Manager Czech Republic, Regional Manager for the Mediterranean in Italy, and leadership of the worldwide drives business.
Frei holds a PhD in electrical machines from ETH Zurich, and an MBA from IMD Lausanne.
Harsh Goenka is Chair at RPG Enterprises, which was founded by his father in 1979. He graduated in economics from St. Xavier’s College (India) and began his career as Managing Director at CEAT Ltd before taking up his current position in 1988.
Goenka is a Special Invitee of the Indian Merchants Chamber, a member of the National Executive Committee at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and a board member at India’s National Gallery of Modern Art. He serves on the Governing Board of India’s National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) and as a trustee of the Breach Candy Hospital Trust, and promotes the CEAT cricket ratings for international and domestic cricket.
He holds an MBA from IMD.
Michael Hengartner is President at ETH Board. He studied biochemistry at the Université Laval in Québec City. After earning his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Nobel Laureate H Robert Horvitz, he became head of a research group at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the US (1994-2001).
In 2001, he was appointed Professor for Molecular Biology at the newly created Ernst Hadorn Chair at the Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zürich. From 2009 to 2014, he acted as Dean of the Faculty of Science and from 2014 to 2020 as Rector at the University of Zürich. From 2016 to 2020, he also served as President at swissuniversities.
Hengartner holds an Executive MBA from IMD Lausanne (2008) and is the recipient of several awards for his groundbreaking research on the molecular basis of apoptosis, among them the Swiss National Latsis Prize. In 2010 he was awarded the Credit Suisse Award for Best Teaching at UZH and in 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne University in recognition of his research in molecular biology and his services to society.
Frédéric Herman is Rector at the University of Lausanne (UNIL). After training as a civil engineer at the University of Liège in Belgium and the University of Bristol in the UK, he moved to Canberra to do a PhD at the Australian National University. During his PhD, he started working on the interactions between climate, erosion, and tectonics.
After a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, where he worked mainly on tectonic and erosional processes in central Nepal, Herman joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 2007. As a lecturer, he had the opportunity to work with several Master’s, PhD, and postdoctoral students over a period of five years and to develop a research program on the interactions between climate and earth surface processes.
In 2012, Herman moved to the University of Lausanne to set up a research group at the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, first as a professor funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and then as an associate professor. He was promoted to full professor in 2019 and held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences and Environment from 2018 to 2021, when he became Rector at the University of Lausanne.
Karen Huebscher is Non-Executive Director and Vice-Chair at Sandoz. She is also a non-executive director at BBI Solutions (a Novo Holdings company), where she is responsible for managing the operating and financial assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and Founder and Managing Director at FibulaMedical AG. She is an accomplished board-level executive with a strong record in the life sciences industries.
A Swiss/British citizen, Huebscher served as CEO at Solvias from 2014 to 2021. Solvias is a service provider to pharmaceutical, biotech, generics, medtech, and cosmetics businesses. As CEO, she managed the turnaround and transformation of the privately held company, enabling an exit for its shareholders through a sale to Private Equity in 2020. She remains a significant shareholder in the company.
She spent 15+ years at Novartis, where she held global top 400 positions in the Group such as Global Head of Investor Relations, member of the Divisional Executive Committee and of the Innovation Board for Vaccines and Diagnostics.
In addition to her executive track record, Huebscher is a committed champion of Swiss excellence in life sciences and technology/engineering.
As IMD EMBA alumni, she also holds a Master’s degree in animal sciences and a PhD in natural sciences, both from the ETH Zürich.
Ilham Kadri is CEO and President of the Executive Committee at Solvay, a materials, chemicals and solutions company which, through its science, innovations, and purpose, contributes to protecting the climate, preserving resources, and fostering a better life.
Under her mandate to unleash Solvay’s potential and her purpose-driven leadership, the group launched its strategy G.R.O.W. to drive growth, cash, and returns through distinct business mandates, a unifying operating model, and a forceful customer culture: its holistic and bold Solvay One Planet sustainability objectives to drive superior long-term value creation, as well as Solvay’s Purpose and Compass: We bond People, Ideas and Elements to Reinvent Progress with the vision to create sustainable shared value for all.
Kadri is a world citizen who has worked across four continents with leading chemical and packaging multinationals like Dow and Sealed Air, and in markets ranging from automotive and aerospace to water desalination, hygiene and healthcare. Before Solvay, she was CEO and President at US-based hygiene and cleaning solutions provider Diversey, having led its purposeful turnaround and growth, subsequent spin-off and divestiture.
She is an independent board member at A.O. Smith and L’Oréal. She is an Executive Committee member at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, steering committee member at the European Round Table of Industrialists, and a permanent member of the International Business Council, part of the World Economic Forum.
The common themes in Kadri’s personal and professional life are education, inclusion, and diversity as well as sustainability: topics she strongly advocates to help create more equal opportunities, prosperity, and a healthier planet for future generations. She is committed to promoting women in STEM. She is the founder of the ISSA Hygieia™ Network, a US-based foundation championing women in the hygiene industry. In 2020, soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she created the Solvay Solidarity Fund, building followership with employees and shareholders to support Solvay colleagues and their families in need. In a matter of weeks, the Fund collected €12m and the initiative inspired other companies to follow suit.
In 2019, Kadri entered Fortune’s list of Most Powerful Women in International Business, ranking 21st out of 50.
She holds a degree in chemical engineering from L’École des Hauts Polymères in Strasbourg and a PhD in macromolecular physico-chemistry from Strasbourg’s Louis Pasteur University.
Jouko Karvinen is Chair of the Supervisory Board for Finnair PLC, the national airline of Finland, as well as Chair of the board at Solidium, an investment company owned by the state of Finland.
Before becoming Chair, Karvinen was Vice Chair at Finnair from 2016 to 2017. Previously, he was a member of the Supervisory Board at Valmet from 2016 to 2018, serving on the compensation committee. Prior to that, he was at Nokia, where he served as Vice Chair of the Supervisory Board from 2013 to 2016, Chair of the Audit Committee from 2012 to 2016, Chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee from 2013 to 2014, and a board member from 2011 to 2016.
In addition, he was a member of the Supervisory Board at SKF from 2010 to 2016. He was CEO at Stora Enso Oyj from 2007 to 2014, and CEO at Philips Medical Systems Division from 2002 to 2006. He was a member of the Board of Management at Royal Philips Electronics in 2006 and its Group Management Committee from 2002 to 2006.
Earlier in his career, Karvinen held executive and managerial positions at ABB Group Limited, including Executive Vice President, Head of Automation Technology Products Division, and member of the Group Executive Committee.
He holds a Master’s of Science from Tampere University of Technology.
Liselott Kilaas is Chair at Coala Life. She has over 20 years of international top management experience, resulting in a proven track record in strategic and operational performance development across a broad spectrum of businesses. During the last 10 years she worked in the healthcare sector and was CEO at Aleris 2013–2017.
Kilaas has extensive non-executive board and committee experience including central banking, investment funds, telecom, technology, branded consumer goods, healthcare, medical technology, aluminum, media and shipping. Her first two board assignments were with the Central Bank of Norway (also responsible for the Norwegian Sovereign Fund), a position she held for 12 years, and Telenor, a position she held for 10 years.
She is currently working with companies that are listed, private equity owned, and governmental owned. She is currently a member of the board of directors at Norsk Hydro ASA, Orkla ASA, Ambea AB, Peab AB, Nobina AB, Norwegian Sovereign Fund, and Chair of the Board of Directors at Coala Life, Implantica AG, and Avonova AB.
She has a Master’s in mathematical statistics from the University of Oslo, Norway and is an IMD MBA.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp is Executive Chair at LEGO Brand Group and Kirkbi A/S. He also holds positions as member of the board at Starbucks and Merlin Entertainments Limited, and as Chair at BrainPOP.
Knudstorp joined the LEGO Group in 2001 and was appointed President and CEO in 2004.
He began his career at McKinsey & Company in 1998 and holds an MSc and PhD in economics management from Aarhus University in Denmark.
Michel Liès is Chair at Zurich Insurance. He has 40 years’ experience in global insurance and reinsurance, life insurance, and property and casualty insurance. He has held a number of positions in the industry, including Group CEO at Swiss Re. He began his career at the reinsurer in 1978, working first in the life market in Latin America before moving to Europe in 1983, where he held a number of senior positions within Swiss Re’s life businesses.
In 1994, Liès moved into Swiss Re’s non-life sector with responsibility for southern Europe and Latin America. From 1998-2000 he served as Swiss Re’s Head of Latin America Division until he was appointed Head of the Europe Division of its Property & Casualty Business Group. In 2005 he became Swiss Re’s Head Client Markets with responsibility for client relationships worldwide, and was also appointed as a member of the reinsurer’s Group Executive Committee.
From 2011 to 2012 he served as Swiss Re’s Chair of Global Partnerships, which works with governments, international development bodies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to mitigate and address global risks and increase resilience. He was appointed Swiss Re’s Group CEO in February 2012 and served in that role until his retirement from Swiss Re in 2016. He became Chair of the board at Zurich Insurance Group Ltd and Zurich Insurance Company Ltd in April 2018, with committee memberships including the Governance, Nominations and Sustainability Committee (Chair) and the Remuneration Committee. He was also Director at Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.
Liès is Chair at Avenir Suisse, a board member at the Institute of International Finance (IIF), and a Trustees Board member at the Swiss Institute of International Studies. He is also a member of the European Financial Services Round Table and a member of the Board of Trustees at the Lucerne Festival and a member of the steering committee at the Insurance Development Forum.
He holds a Master’s degree in mathematics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH).
Margarita Louis-Dreyfus is Chairperson of the Board at LDC Board Louis Dreyfus Commodities. She has served on the Louis Dreyfus board since 2007. She has been a Member of the Supervisory Board of Louis Dreyfus Commodities Holdings B.V. since April 2011 and was appointed Deputy Chair in 2013.
She has held a number of positions in accountancy, sales, and marketing and graduated with a diploma in accounting from St Petersburg School of Commerce in 1981.
Louis-Dreyfus is also founder and President of the Paris-based Louis Dreyfus Foundation, founder of the MOVEO Foundation, and a member of the Weidenfeld Scholarships Advisory Board at Oxford University.
Jean-François Manzoni is President and Nestlé Chaired Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD. His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on leadership, the development of high-performance organizations, and corporate governance. In recent years he has been concentrating increasingly on ways to ensure leadership programs have lasting impact, particularly through the use of technology-mediated approaches.
At an organizational level, Manzoni studies the content of change (including the use of levers such as strategy, structure, and systems), the management of the change process, and the role of leaders therein. His work in this area has appeared in several books, articles, and over 30 cases – four of which received Case of the Year awards from The Case Centre (formerly the European Foundation for Management Development or the European Case Clearing House). He also acted as content expert in the development of The Change Pro Simulation®, a groundbreaking computer-based change management simulation.
At an individual level, he studies how leaders can create a caring, high-performance work environment. This stream of research has led to several articles and a book entitled The Set-Up to Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail (with Jean-Louis Barsoux). The book, which builds on Manzoni’s and Barsoux’s initial Harvard Business Review article introducing the term “set-up-to-fail syndrome”, received two Book of the Year awards, and is discussed in undergraduate, MBA, and executive development programs all over the world.
On the corporate governance side, Manzoni focuses on interpersonal dynamics within the boardroom and between management and the board. His research examining the impact of interpersonal dynamics on increasingly diverse boards of directors received the Research Award on Leadership and Corporate Governance from the Association of Executive Search Consultants.
A Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Directors, he currently serves on the board at Keppel Corporation, an international diversified group listed on the Singapore stock exchange (where he also chairs the nominations committee and is a member of the remuneration committee). He previously served on the boards at AACSB International (the world’s largest business education alliance) and Singapore’s Civil Service College, among others.
Alongside these lifelong interests, Manzoni has also been increasingly interested in closing the growing managerial “knowing-doing gap”, i.e., the gap between what managers kind of know they should be doing and the extent to which they actually behave that way in practice. One aspect of this quest, accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis, has been exploring the role that technology can play in helping to design and deliver interventions that a) produce significant and lasting individual impact, and b) can be scaled effectively and efficiently to large numbers of individuals in order to build a real capability within the organization.
The recipient of several awards for excellence in teaching, Manzoni is Co-Director of IMD’s signature program Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) and teaches on the High-Performance Leadership (HPL) open program and Executive MBA (EMBA) course.
He re-joined IMD in 2016, having already served on the IMD faculty between 2004 and 2010 when he was Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development and Director of their Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives (BPSE).
He previously served on the faculty at INSEAD in Singapore and Fontainebleau where he founded, and for four years directed, the PwC Research Initiative on High-Performance Organizations. He later directed their Global Leadership Centre, supporting their leadership-related coaching, teaching, and research activities throughout the world.
A citizen of Canada and France, Manzoni received his doctorate from Harvard Business School. He had earlier graduated from L’École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal and worked with Ernst and Young in Montreal before receiving an MBA from McGill University.
Manzoni is a frequent keynote speaker and discussion partner for business leaders, including through the IMD CEO Dialogue Series in which he holds frank and insightful discussions with CEOs from various organizations. He has also performed consulting, top management team support, and leadership development work for several international organizations, which has led him to work in more than 30 countries over the years.
He currently serves on a number of International Advisory Panels of industry bodies (e.g., digitalswitzerland), academic institutions (e.g., EHL Hospitality Business School) and corporations (e.g., Novartis Culture Leadership Advisory Board).
Geraldine Matchett is a non-executive board member at ABB. She is the former Co-CEO at Royal DSM N.V., where she was also Chief Financial Officer and member of the Managing Board. She joined DSM’s Managing Board and became Chief Financial Officer in 2014. She was appointed as Co-CEO in 2020.
Before joining DSM, she worked with the SGS Group from 2004 where she held various positions including Corporate Finance Manager and Senior Vice President Group Financial Controller, before being appointed Global Chief Financial Officer in 2010. In this role, she was voted CFO of the year in Switzerland for Large Companies.
Prior to SGS, Matchett worked for Deloitte in Switzerland and for KPMG in the UK, obtaining her Chartered Accountant qualification while working in London. Matchett holds a Bachelor’s degree in physical and human geography from Reading University (UK) and a Master’s degree in sustainable development from Cambridge University.
Her positions include non-executive Director and member of the Finance, Audit, and Compliance Committee at ABB, Co-Chair at HRH the Prince of Wales’ A4S (Accounting for Sustainability) CFO Leadership Network Europe, executive committee member at WBCSD, and board memberships at FCLTGlobal and Catalyst Europe.
Loïc Moutault is Global President, Petcare at Mars, Inc.. Through comprehensive veterinary care, nutrition, diagnostics, wearable health monitoring, DNA testing, and platform businesses, Mars Petcare’s 100,000 associates across more than 130 countries work towards one purpose every day: a better world for pets.
Moutault first joined Mars, Inc. as an intern in the finance department after completing an MBA at the Burgundy School of Business and a postgraduate in emerging markets economy at the Prague University of Economics. He held several finance positions in France and Eastern Europe before rising through the ranks to become Corporate Finance Staff Officer for Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
He then moved into general management for Mars in Switzerland before leading the Petcare business in Germany and serving as Regional Director Asia Pacific for Royal Canin, a subsidiary of Mars Petcare. He was promoted to President of Royal Canin in 2014 and held the role until he took his current role in 2022.
During his eight years leading Royal Canin, the turnover of the business doubled and went through a significant transformation in digital and direct to consumer (D2C). Under his leadership, Royal Canin also evolved to be a global leader in health through nutrition, embracing a model that has a positive impact on society.
Moutault lives in Brussels with his wife, their two children, and their high-spirited boxer, Coco.
Martin M Naville is CEO at the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, a leading business association with 1,800 business members (Swiss and American companies) which facilitates business between Switzerland and the USA. The Chamber also speaks for multinational companies based in Switzerland – large and small, Swiss and foreign.
Before taking over Swiss Amcham in October 2004, Naville spent 16 years with Boston Consulting Group in Munich, Zurich, and New York. In 1995, he was elected Partner and Director of Boston Consulting Group. At BCG, he specialized in the fields of wealth management and telecommunications. He started his professional career in 1984 as a corporate banker with JP Morgan in Zurich and New York
Naville has been Chair of the board at Zurich Zoo since 2004. He is also a senior advisor at Morgan Stanley (Switzerland), President at Komitee Weltoffenes Zürich, and a member of the Global Advisory Board at ETH Zurich.
He holds a Master of Law from the University of Zurich.
Bernhard Nuesser is CEO at Héron Optique et Audition. Previously, he was President at AMERA (Asia, Middle East, Russia, Africa) and President of Online and Digital at Essilor. He joined the company in 2013 and was promoted to President of Essilor Europe and President of Global Instruments in 2014. In 2016, he was mandated with the acceleration of the group’s digital agenda comprising both global e-commerce activities and the development and implementation of the group’s digital transformation roadmap. He is also a member of their Group Executive Committee.
Nuesser, who is based in Singapore, started his career in commercial and investment banking, working in several European countries for UBS. After his MBA from IMD in 1998, he joined the Executive Committee at GrandVision, a global leader in optical retailing, where he held various CEO positions including CEO of Vision Express in the UK from 2003 to 2008. Subsequently, he became CEO and Investor at Mondottica Ltd, a global, fast-growing Hong Kong-based eyewear company.
He serves on the boards at several high-profile joint ventures of the EssilorLuxottica group, such as Nikon-Essilor in Japan and MJS, China’s fastest-growing optical franchise. From 2015 to 2018 he served as President at EUROM1, the European Federation of the Optical Industry.
Damien O’Brien is a non-executive director at Ardagh Group and St Vincent’s Health Australia. He has enjoyed a global career with roles in China, Sydney, Paris, London, and Zurich. He retired from global management consulting and executive search firm Egon Zehnder in 2018 after 30 years, including six years as CEO and the last eight years as Chair.
Prior to this, he held various management positions at Red Rock Leisure, a family-owned group of companies in Australia, and worked as an associate with McKinsey. His current boards include Ardagh Metal Packaging SA in the US, Ardagh Group SA, and the Advisory Board of Conduit Funds Management in Sydney.
O’Brien holds an MBA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales. He also has a diploma in theology and philosophy from Saint Columban’s College in Sydney, which included two years’ study and community work in Mindanao, the Philippines.
He has been a member of the supervisory board at IMD since 2008.
Adolfo Orive is President and CEO at Tetra Pak, the world’s leading food processing and packaging solutions company. Tetra Pak is a privately owned company with more than 25,000 employees in 160 countries and net sales of €11.14bn (2021).
Orive brings 26 years of international experience at Tetra Pak to his current leadership role. Most recently he served as Cluster Vice President of their North, Central & South America division. Prior to this, he served as Cluster Vice President of Europe & Central Asia, and, earlier on, as Managing Director of Tetra Pak Iberia and Managing Director of Tetra Pak Colombia. He joined Tetra Pak in 1993 as a commercial director in Mexico.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Universidad Iberoamericana and a Master’s degree in business administration from the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico.