Meet IMD Business School’s MBA Class Of 2024

AN UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE

Beyond the demands and landmarks, the Class of 2024 is united by shared experiences. One highlight, says Gianluca Perino, has been the Discovery Expeditions. In Perino’s case, he completed the expedition to Singapore, which exposed him to advanced technologies – and karaoke. In contrast, Orlando Santos headed to Silicon Valley for his expedition.

“The structured activities of the program, such as visiting leading tech firms, startups, and incubators and engaging in talks with influential speakers, were incredibly insightful. These interactions deepened my understanding of the entrepreneurial spirit and the fast-paced, dynamic environment that drives Silicon Valley. I even brought home some of Silicon Valley’s innovation culture, feeling more inspired to develop my startup one day. Equally memorable were the opportunities to explore San Francisco and the surrounding area with my classmates…These experiences helped strengthen our bonds and further connect on a personal level.”

For others, MBAT – the “MBA Olympics” held on the HEC Paris campus in May – was the high point of the MBA program. Nadia Osman notes that IMD took home 19 medals in the competition, where events range from soccer to video gaming. Among the medals, says Ananya Bala, was IMD’s 2nd-place finish in the Battle of the Bands in front of 200 people.

“I’ve always wanted to be in a band and feel lucky to have one with fellow musicians at IMD. I’m a singer, so I love having my solo moments here-and-there, but leading the band has also taught me valuable leadership lessons. I coached fellow singers on performance and vocal technique and was happy to see them shine as they performed for the first time on stage!”

Isabel Fernandez Acin, an education project manager from Spain, looks back fondly on the Farewell Barbecue, which is held in June to celebrate the end of the first six month. At the same time, Xiaolong Ou, an assistant vice president at Citi, points to the Mountain Discovery Trip as his best memory at IMD.

“We ventured to the Swiss Alps for an experience centered around sustainability. This trip offered numerous bonding opportunities for our newly formed cohort, from snowshoeing to enjoying the famous Swiss fondue. It was more than just a trip; it was a profound learning experience about our future impact on climate and social responsibility. Observing the less snow-covered Alps from our hotel window underscored the urgency of these issues and what we, as future leaders, must do for our planet. Despite the serious topic, we had a lot of fun with team-building activities, including my first snowshoeing experience. The renowned Swiss fondue dinner and the night party were perfect for helping our cohort build tight relationships.”

AI AT THE CENTER OF THE PROGRAMMING

As a whole, 97% of the IMD MBA Class of 2024 hails from outside Switzerland, with women comprising 37% of the class. On average, the class scored a 680 on their GMATs, though 10% of the class submitted GREs. In terms of professional experience, 22% of the class last worked in Finance, beating out Consulting (16%), Manufacturing (12%), Consumer and Luxury Goods (8%), Healthcare (8%), and Energy (5%).

This year, IMD ranked as the #1 MBA program in Europe according to Bloomberg Businessweek. The Financial Times also pegged IMD as a Top 10 program in Executive Education, while its full-time MBA program ranked 2nd globally for International Mobility and 21st for Alumni Quality. At the same time, IMD finished 22nd and 24th in the LinkedIn and QS Global MBA rankings, highlighted by a 3rd-place finish in Leadership Potential.

Indeed, 2024 has been a big news year for IMD. In April, the school named David Bach as its new president, replacing  Jean-François Manzoni on September 1st. Earlier this year, IMD opened its TONOMUS Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation, a program focused on harnessing the latest research and best practices for using digital technologies to re-shape business operations. However, the biggest news involves the revamping of the IMD curriculum for the coming cohort. Notably, IMD will be deeply instilling Artificial Intelligence across the curriculum, applying AI tools and techniques to help students master 10 skills such as systems thinking, pattern recognition, and storyboarding.

“We reorganized everything,” says Omar Toulan in a 2024 interview with P&Q. “We needed to take this up to another level. We are focusing on elemental human traits. I have yet to see an AI system that can be an effective leader. You still need someone in the room to use judgment in making the final decision and motivate people to implement it, someone with the intelligence and the courage to make difficult decisions. I would put my bet on leadership.”

For Toulan, the change aligns with the higher-level skills that graduates will need to leverage in the future, according to employers, scholars, and IMD alumni. “We all need to reconsider what we teach, how we teach, and how we evaluate people,” says Toulan. “Graduates may not have to do certain analyses themselves anymore, but they will have to ask the right questions from AI. AI can be extremely time-saving, allowing you to focus on more critical issues. The goal is not to take a defensive posture against AI. When you are talking about projects and papers, you need to be conscious of the kinds of questions you are asking and you need to use AI as a partner.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH DEAN OMAR TOULAN

This summer, P&Q reached out to Dean Toulan to learn more about Artificial Intelligence, along with other developments in the MBA program. Here are Toulan’s thoughts on what to expect in the coming year.

P&Q: What have been the two most important developments in your MBA program over the past year? What type of impact will they have on current and future MBAs?

Toulan: “This year we introduced an internship option into the program. This was done in part through another change we undertook which was to convert a month of core courses into electives. The internship option covers eight weeks in the summer including the four-week summer break and four weeks of August electives. The goal is to provide students with a head start in the permanent job market and has been warmly received by the class.

Starting this past March, we have also introduced our own IMD AI+ for the MBA which allows students to effectively ask the professor questions 24/7. All class recordings and material are inputted into our closed access AI+ (PPI scratched), which also has access to the broader web, and as such students can ask questions such as, ‘What were the key elements of the framework Professor Toulan discussed on Tuesday and can you give me an example from the pharma industry?’”

P&Q: Every year, P&Q publishes a “10 Business Schools to Watch” feature that highlights how schools are raising the bar and enhancing the student experience through innovations or expansions in programming or resources. What is one innovation that sets your school apart from your peer programs and makes you a business school to watch? Why is it so groundbreaking?

Toulan: “For 2025, we are launching a redesigned program that addresses the implications of living in an AI-enabled world. In such a world, leadership becomes that much more fundamental as do fundamental human skills of strategic thinking, pattern recognition, systems thinking, presentation skills, and strategic communication. We are introducing a new two-week module at the beginning of the program to address these “transversal” skills. The idea is then to track these skills over the year so that students receive not only course grades but also skill grades. We do so by working with assignments in the core courses that address different skills and parsing these grades out. At the end of the day, it is these skills that will be fundamental when on the job market.

In addition, we are launching a Future Lab module in Singapore in June 2025 in which we will take the entire cohort to Singapore, one of the world’s leading tech hubs, for a full month of experiential learning focused on AI and Digital Transformation.

These innovations highlight the importance of real-world learning for which IMD is so well-known. They complement our other program experientials including startup projects, international consulting projects, the 100,000 CHF Venture Award, and a host of various “labs.”

P&Q: What types of programs do you offer to sharpen your students’ soft skills? What areas do you emphasize and how do you instill these skills in your students?

Toulan: “Being a leader requires one to not only make difficult decisions but to get others to buy in. As such we provide sessions by our partner Dramatic Resources on presentation skills as well as specialized sessions on storytelling and crisis management.”

P&Q: What types of programming – through classroom instruction, extracurriculars, and treks – does your school offer to expose students to country-specific and global business practices? What have students told you were the most educational and fun aspects of these activities?

Toulan: “For the last several years, we have started the program by taking all students to the Swiss Alps for a mountain experience that focuses on developing solutions to global sustainability issues. This trip is consistently appreciated, as it is very experiential and provides deep insights into the challenges and impacts faced by societies and businesses across various industries and regions. Beyond its educational value, the weekend provides a great bonding opportunity and allows us to share some typical Swiss culture with the incoming class. Towards the end of the year, students split into teams to apply all of the knowledge and skills they have acquired over the year to an International Consulting Project. These projects involve tackling current issues faced by multinational companies and nonprofits worldwide and proposing implementation plans for their recommendations. Introduced in 1980, the International Consulting Projects remain one of the most appreciated experiential components of our program, offering invaluable industry, functional and global insights and enabling students to see the real-world impact of their combined learnings.”

P&Q: What are the most exciting new courses that your school is offering to MBAs this school year? What makes them so unique and valuable?

Toulan: “This year, the new electives we offered included:

Mindfulness for Life Retreat
Mindfulness is a megatrend in corporate and organizational life. In this elective, derived from the mindfulness-based cognitive therapy tradition, we look at key factors that make the practice of mindfulness a useful ally in dealing with the ups and downs of everyday life. The course unfolds over two consecutive full days and preserves the feeling of a mindfulness retreat featuring guided meditation practice interspersed with key insights from research on mindfulness, happiness, well-being, and human flourishing.

Next-Generation Data Leadership
This is an innovative elective designed for aspiring leaders who want to make a difference in the data-driven business world. Students gain a deep understanding of the data economy and become equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to build sustainable data-driven business models that can foster growth and innovation in tomorrow’s economy. Furthermore, students have the opportunity to reflect on the societal impact of increasingly using data and AI in the economy, with regard to inequalities, privacy, democracy, and individual freedom.”

P&Q: Who are two new professors who’ve joined your faculty in the past year? What do they teach and how will they be difference-makers in your MBA program?

Toulan: “Jose Parra Moyano joined us last summer and is a leading researcher and educator in the field of AI and digital technologies. Last fall, his electives – Next Generation Data Leadership and How to Speak Money (which focused on digital currencies) – were deeply appreciated. This year he is teaching our AI course. All of these courses expose the students to the latest knowledge on rapidly changing topics.

Sophie Bacq joined us last summer and took over the Business and Society course. As a world-renowned expert in social entrepreneurship, she brings the importance of not only the environmental but social side to the study of sustainability.”

P&Q: What types of support does your career center and alumni provide to MBA students? How do these services and relationships make your graduates more competitive in the marketplace?

Toulan: “We offer various forms of career support to our students, including career coaching, mentoring and advising, a career curriculum, career networking and employment opportunities, and career insights.

* Career coaching, mentoring, and advising is a personalized service that helps our students explore their career options, develop their personal brand, craft their resumes and cover letters, practice their interview skills, and negotiate their salaries and benefits. Our coaches and advisors also provide feedback and guidance on specific career-related issues and challenges that our students face both within an individual context and within specific employment sectors.

* The career curriculum is a fully-fledged program of group workshops covering, inter alia, CV and cover letter writing, industry trends, job market analysis, career planning, networking strategies, interview practice, and personal branding.

* Career networking and employment opportunities are opportunities for our students to meet and interact with potential employers, alumni, industry experts, and peers from different backgrounds and sectors. Events can include career fairs, panel discussions, guest lectures, company visits, and networking sessions.

* Career insights, both online and in person, offer access to topical information on anything and everything related to business careers. Career insights enable students to have an edge in networking and interviewing.”

Click on the links below for in-depth profiles of Class of 2024 members.

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Ananya Bala	Hyderabad, India	McGill University	Branch Furniture
Jack Davies	London, United Kingdom	University of Cambridge	Grosvenor Food & AgTech
Veronica Durando	New Jersey	Washington & Lee University	Audacity Health
Isabel Fernandez Acin	Madrid, Spain	Universidad de Navarra, Spain	UNIR (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja)
Adrian Knöpfel	Zurich, Switzerland	University of Zurich	Regional Hospital of Uster
Beatriz Monreal	Santos, Brazil	FEI, Brazil	Johnson & Johnson
Nadia Osman	Khartoum, Sudan	Sudan University of Science & Technology (SUST)	KCS Co. Ltd.
Xiaolong Ou	Beijing, China	Penn State University	Citi
Gianluca Perino	La Spezia, Italy	Italian Naval Academy	Italian Navy
Anouk Rossier	Geneva, Switzerland	EPFL, Switzerland	McKinsey & Company
Orlando Santos	Fátima, Portugal	Lisbon University	CERN
Sebastian Schulte	Kerfield, Germany	University of Stuttgart	Boston Consulting Group