I have been involved in executive education for more than thirty years as a teacher, leader and strategist in schools all over the world, including Sloan, Wharton, Norwegian School of Management and IMD. Now, as I approach the next stage of my life, it seems like a good time to crystallize my thoughts on the subject.

In essence, I shall be claiming in this book that the “classic” business school operating model generally seems to be collapsing. I will identify the most important trends in business education that are contributing to this and give the reader food for thought regarding the optimal business model that an academic institution should choose in order to address these trends. While I do not claim to have all the answers on how the business school model should adapt, I do claim that my colleagues and I have developed a reasonably effective model, which uniquely positions IMD to address these trends, and can thus be of more general interest. Throughout the book, I will use examples from my IMD experience to illustrate and substantiate my points. This book will thus be intentionally biased toward and rather explicit in one way of running a school, perhaps in the same way that Sir Richard Branson might be if he were writing about Virgin.