Oliver Zeidler

IMD Business School

Institution: IMD Business School

“Olympic champion, MBA graduate, and Deloitte manager building resilient teams through leadership and workshop.”

Hometown: Lucerne, Switzerland

Fun fact about yourself: I competed in the Olympic Games and won gold in rowing after telling my family until the age of 20 that rowing is not a sport for me.

Undergraduate School and Degree: FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management, Bachelor of Laws.

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Consultant at Deloitte Private in Munich, Germany

Where will you be working after graduation? Deloitte Switzerland in Zurich as a manager. I am also running my own business as a company ambassador, speaker and coach.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: Co-Lead of the Consulting Club, Team Captain of the Rowing and Tug-of-War teams

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? Graduating with honors at IMD while preparing for the 2025 World Championships, where I won silver. It was the first time in my life that I fully committed myself to academics, and earning a degree with honors made me very proud and allowed me to achieve a personal goal I had set for 2025. Balancing the intensity of the MBA with world class athletic preparation required strict prioritization, discipline, and the determination to attempt something few people had tried before. The experience showed once more that high performance in business and sport relies on the same foundations of focus and consistency.

What achievements are you most proud of in your professional career? Winning Olympic gold in rowing after switching to the sport relatively late in my life taught me how to rebuild confidence and refine my approach after setbacks. It showed me that even when you are already successful, you can still start something new and pursue it at the highest level.

Why did you choose this business school? IMD is globally recognized for leadership and executive education. As an MBA student, you learn from the same faculty who work with senior executives and business leaders on the same campus. That connection makes discussions, especially around leadership, more credible and linked to real world challenges. Together with the small class size, reflective environment, and open exchange with peers and executives, it created a personal and practical learning experience that made IMD the right choice for me.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? We had many outstanding professors at IMD. I especially enjoyed the sessions on AI and technology with José Parra Moyano. These stood out not only because of the professor himself, but also because the topic genuinely interests me. The classes were very applied, often experimental in format, and always connected to real and current business situations. They pushed us to think critically about leadership, technology, and decision-making rather than just learning frameworks.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? The High Performance Leadership sessions with Georg Kohlreiser were the most impactful part of my year in Lausanne. The days were emotionally demanding and deeply reflective, but they completely changed how I approach relationships and leadership. They helped me understand trust, connection, and how my own behavior influences the performance and mindset of others.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? Participating in MBAT in Paris was a great experience and brought our cohort even closer together. Sport has always been a powerful way to build trust and strong relationships, and the competitions there showed that once more. Competing, supporting each other, and celebrating together created a unique sense of team spirit that strengthened the bonds within our class.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Looking back, I would try to participate more consistently in extracurricular activities throughout the year. With a very busy schedule during the core parts of the program, I mainly attended additional sessions and social gatherings at the beginning and again in the final months of the MBA. If I could change one thing, I would spread that participation more evenly across the year, as those moments outside the classroom were often where some of the most memorable things happened.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? One of the most impactful cases for me was the Ferrari spin off from Fiat Chrysler, which we analyzed in Salvatore Cantale’s finance class. Ferrari was partially taken public and then separated from FCA to unlock its value as a standalone luxury brand. What made the session particularly interesting was that one of the investment bankers involved in the deal joined the class and explained how the transaction was structured and why it was done that way. The case showed how financial analysis, strategy, and the vision of executives all play a role in major corporate decisions.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? I loved Lausanne from the first moment I arrived. Living and studying in a city so closely connected to sport and international organizations was inspiring, and the setting on Lake Geneva with the mountains nearby made it a very special place to spend such an intense year and explore the surroundings with my classmates.

What business leader do you admire most? Jochen Zeitz. As CEO of Puma and later Harley Davidson, he showed that sustainability and business performance do not have to be in conflict. Long before it became widely discussed, he pushed the idea that responsible business practices must be pursued and that nature should be treated as a core stakeholder in every venture. Beyond his corporate career, he has been deeply involved in philanthropy, supporting conservation and community initiatives through organizations such as The B Team, the Zeitz Foundation, and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. What I admire most is his combination of vision, discipline, and authenticity. He leads with clear values and demonstrates that long-term thinking and strong business performance can go hand-in-hand.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? From the first day at IMD, we engaged with AI by learning how the systems work and how they can be used as a sparring partner rather than a substitute for thinking. The school actively integrated AI into the curriculum and encouraged us to use it in our work, including reflecting on and analyzing the development of our transversal skills through assignments. Using AI in this way provided insights beyond traditional grading and helped us better understand our own learning and decision-making. It also prepared us to work with these technologies thoughtfully and effectively in the professional world.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? Georg Bunk Lauritsen. Georg stands out with his thoughtful, articulate, and diplomatic communication style, while remaining genuinely open and kind to everyone. As a former professional athlete who competed in sailing for the Danish national team, we understood each other well and often shared similar perspectives. I admired how he combined strong intellect with humility and respect for others. I am confident that he will be very successful, both professionally and personally.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

1. Build a global platform that helps organizations develop resilient, high performing teams by translating lessons from elite sport into leadership and organizational transformation.

2. Serve as a trusted operating partner to companies and investors, helping leadership teams make better investment, strategy, and operational decisions.

What made Oliver such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2026?

“Oliver Zeidler is a world champion athlete who rows into every new challenge with the open eyes of a beginner. That combination is rare, and it made him one of the most memorable students I have had the privilege of teaching.

He approached every assignment with care and patience, taking the time to understand a problem fully before committing to a direction. When we debriefed as a class, Oliver was the one who spoke most openly about the path he had taken: what had given him clarity early on, where his thinking had evolved, and which assumptions he had needed to revise along the way. He offered these reflections as gifts to the room, and his classmates received them as such. Learning from someone willing to share the whole journey, including the parts where the road bends, is a different and deeper kind of learning. That is, at its heart, a growth mindset, and Oliver embodied it more fully than almost anyone I have taught. He understood, with a maturity that is difficult to teach, that the effort to understand matters as much as the answer you arrive at. He treated every stumble in his reasoning as information, every revision as progress. A true learned.

Oliver was also very generous with his classmates and the school. As the reigning Olympic rowing gold medalist, when it came to the MBA Olympics, he could have just focused on himself and easily won. Rather what he did was coach his classmates, individuals who had never really rowed before and ended up walking away with 4 medals. Furthermore, just before graduation he donated the jersey he won the Gold medal to the school as a thank you for his experience. Oliver is an athlete, a scholar, and a gentleman.

IMD made Oliver a better strategist. Oliver made IMD a better place.”

José Parra Moyano
Professor of Digital Strategy

DON’T MISS: MBAS TO WATCH: CLASS OF 2026

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