Jean-François Manzoni is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD.

His research, teaching and consulting activities are focused on the management of change at the individual and organizational levels.
At the organizational level, Jean-François 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 a number of articles and books, including Process Re-engineering, Organizational Change and Performance Improvement (McGraw Hill, with Soumitra Dutta) and Performance Measurement and Management Control: Measuring and Rewarding Performance (Marc J. Epstein and Jean-François Manzoni, Editors; Emerald, 2008).

He is the author of numerous cases, four of which received Case of the Year Awards from the European Foundation for Management Development or the European Case Clearing House (most recently, the ecch 2007 Award in the “Strategy and General Management” category). Professor Manzoni also acted as content expert in the development of a groundbreaking computer-based change management simulation, the Change Pro Simulation®.

At the individual level, Professor Manzoni studies how leaders can create a high performance climate by supporting learning and encouraging autonomy, and what they can do to modify their leadership style in that direction. 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 (Harvard Business School Press, with Jean-Louis Barsoux).
A citizen of Canada and France, Professor Manzoni worked with Ernst and Young before receiving an MBA from McGill University (Canada) and his Doctorate from Harvard Business School.

Prior to joining IMD, he spent two years (1984-86) on the faculty of HEC Montréal and twelve years (1992-2004) on the faculty of INSEAD, where he founded and directed the PwC Research Initiative on High Performance Organizations. This initiative was funded by a €5 million grant from PricewaterhouseCoopers, at the time the largest corporate donation ever received by the school.

The recipient of several awards for excellence in teaching, Professor Manzoni is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences on leadership and change, and performs coaching, training and consulting work for several large international organizations.