2026 Best 40-Under-40 Business Professors: José Parra Moyano, IMD Business School

José Parra Moyano
IMD 

“José Parra-Moyano’s research focuses on the business and societal implications of the implementation and adoption of digital technologies. He applies economic theory to the fields of AI, data, and privacy. He focuses on the management and economics of data and privacy and how firms can create sustainable value in the digital economy. An award-winning teacher, he also founded his own successful startup, was appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community of young people driving change, and was named on the Forbes ‘30 under 30’ list of outstanding young entrepreneurs in Switzerland.” – Stefan Michel, Dean of Faculty and Research at IMD, and Professor of Management

José Parra Moyano, 35, is a Professor of Digital Strategy at IMD Business School, where he teaches, researches, and advises executives on how organizations can use artificial intelligence to solve real problems and unlock lasting growth.  

His academic foundations lie in data science, algorithms, and analytics, and yet his research increasingly centers on what he considers the most consequential and least understood dimension of the AI transformation: the people side. He studies how executives can lead AI adoption in ways that equip their organizations with the most capable technologies available while preserving the human judgment, creativity, and agency that ultimately drive differentiation and competitive advantage. This focus is informed by both scholarly inquiry and firsthand experience building a technology company that developed algorithms for HR departments, which gave him an early understanding of how AI reshapes the way people work, decide, and collaborate.   

Through influential work published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, he has provided evidence that uncritical reliance on generative AI can degrade decision quality by reinforcing automation bias and overconfidence, and he has developed practical frameworks that help leaders integrate AI in an effective way that leads not only to efficiency gains but to real growth too. His scholarship extends to the governance of data and algorithms, where his research on data collaboration,  privacy‑preserving technologies, and algorithmic management offers concrete models for balancing innovation with fairness, trust, and regulatory legitimacy. His academic publications also appear in the Journal of Management Information Systems, Business & Information Systems Engineering, Computational Economics, and Metaphilosophy.  

As an educator and advisor, José translates these insights into leadership practice at global scale. At IMD, he develops senior executives and future leaders who must navigate AI‑driven transformation with strategic discipline, helping them prioritize sustainable value creation and organizational resilience over short‑term efficiency gains. His impact reaches well beyond the classroom through international executive education programs and advisory engagements with organizations confronting workforce, governance, and competitiveness challenges linked to AI adoption.  

José has been recognized as a Thinkers50 Radar List member, a Forbes 30 under 30, and a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, where he contributed and helped shape global dialogue on technology, leadership, and the future of work. He is also a passionate and award‑winning teacher, having received teaching awards at the University of Zurich, Copenhagen Business School, and Mannheim Business School.  

BACKGROUND 

At current institution since what year?  2023 

Education:  University of Zurich, PhD in Management and Economics 

List of MBA/graduate business courses you currently teach:  AI Strategy, Future Lab 

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR 

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when … I realized that the job, especially at a place like IMD, is fundamentally about developing and pressure testing bold ideas and then bringing them to life in ways that generate real impact in how people lead, how organizations compete, and how society evolves. 

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? I am currently researching how leaders and organizations navigate AI transformation, and specifically what distinguishes those who generate real organizational value from those whose efforts fail. The most significant discovery has been that the leaders who succeed in generating value with AI for their organizations are essentially funambulists, walking a tightrope where they expand human agency and AI autonomy simultaneously rather than treating them as opposing forces.  

If I weren’t a business school professor… I would be an entrepreneur building products based on algorithms to help my clients optimizing decisions. 

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? That I can inspire the students to go one step further than what they believe is possible, to achieve a goal that is allegedly (but only allegedly) impossible. 

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: That if you do the job well, you will learn more from the students than any of them can imagine. And that is a gift. 

Professor I most admire and why: Karl Schmedders, who was my professor for many years and whose intellectual sharpness, irreverent humor, and extraordinary generosity shaped not just how I think but how I try to show up for my own students. 

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? That the students are highly motivated, deeply informed, and want everything to be applicable by the time they walk out of the room.  

What is most challenging? That the students are highly motivated, deeply informed, and want everything to be applicable by the time they walk out of the room. ;-)  

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… harsh in the grading, and kind in the comments.

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM 

What are your hobbies? Running, reading, learning to sail, and if I am being honest, spending considerably more time reading about how to sail than actually learning how to sail. 

How will you spend your summer?  Learning how to sail, together with my wife and kids, in Spain, my home country. 

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Andalucía in Spain, the South of France, and in winter, the snowy Swiss Alps. 

Favorite book(s): Don Quijote de la Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes.  

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? Goodfellas, because of Ray Liotta’s opening line, and everything that comes after. 

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? These days I am finding Rosalía’s last album, LUX, fantastic.  

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS 

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… Live experimentation with real consequences, where students and executives work alongside AI systems on actual decisions with actual stakes, because the gap between simulating strategy and doing strategy is exactly where the most important learning happens and where most business schools are still too cautious to go. 

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at…  Approaching AI as a source of growth and new capability rather than just a faster way to do what they already do, because the organizations that only chase efficiency gains are slowly optimizing themselves into irrelevance while the ones that ask “what can we do now that we never could before” are the ones quietly redefining their industries. 

I’m grateful for… The smiles and kisses of my children when I make it home at the end of the day. 

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2026 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 GRADUATE BUSINESS PROFESSORS 

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