New IMD President: Dr. John R. Wells

Putting in place processes to ensure continuous improvement is top priority for new IMD President, John Wells. Having taken up his position April 1, 2008, a key part of John Wells’ task is to build a larger executive team to carry the load which in his opinion is currently too heavy for too few.

"I am a firm believer that in the real world of business, the only way to achieve anything is through responsible leadership and strong teams," says Wells. IMD’s new President considers himself fortunate to have inherited what he sees as IMD’s exceptional “teamwork record”. “This stems from the school’s team-based approach to both its MBA and executive education programs. In the real world, in business, the only way you achieve things is through teams; it is a team sport.” Wells’ plans for IMD’s future are built on his own wealth of experience and some 75 interviews conducted with IMD personnel over the past few months prior to taking up his post at the helm.

With a degree in nuclear physics from Oxford, his career has successfully spanned the great divide between academia and the “real world”. This has included time at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), Unilever, Harvard Business School, The Boston Consulting Group, the Monitor Company in Europe, as well as the position of CFO for Pepsi Europe. What is it that drives him?

Results-driven
Like any successful business person, Wells is results-driven but quick to point out that it is how results are delivered that is all important. Having seen irresponsible leadership at all levels all too often in all too many organizations, Wells is vociferous regarding leaders’ responsibility not to extract too much from the balance sheet, not to exploit the environment, and to consider business as a multi-round game. "Results are essential, but achieving them is absolutely not regardless of the cost." And once again, Wells’ own experience has taught him that great results come from great teams.

John Wells’ own research has concentrated on the creation of what he terms “agile strategies” in order to avoid a certain "boom and bust" mentality – i.e. many years of great performance followed by a sudden collapse. How does this impact on his plans for IMD? The answer is simple – avoid complacency and you avoid hitting that wall with its very high accompanying costs – both financial and emotional. Wells is the first to admit that with 15 years of fantastic improvements under the school’s belt, IMD could not be better placed to enable further positive change.

Proud to lead IMD
In the face of increasingly tough competition, why would any executive choose IMD over some of its illustrious competitors? Wells’ answer is unequivocal. “The combination of great Faculty and great programs make it the best around and I’m proud to have been chosen to lead it! IMD is not simply an academic institution, but a leading global business school with rigorous, relevant research. All of IMD’s faculty maintain close ties with 'reality', this is a big draw card.”

Additionally, the school offers one of the few executive MBA programs in the world that addresses the fundamental challenge for both local and international companies – how to operate in a multicultural environment. One of IMD’s EMBA strengths is its excellent distance learning approach. With this in mind, Wells intends to develop IMD’s e-learning offer, seeing it as becoming increasingly important everywhere. Contrary to pure e-learning masters programs, however, he considers it a far more effective option when blended with some classroom learning to promote team building and networking.

Emphasis will also be placed on further development of the school’s highly successful record of wide-spectrum customized programs. This combined with its ability to work with client teams to solve problems with tailored solutions.

As in any organization with any new leader, the next three months will involve re-defining the rules of the road and making sure that all members of his team are on board. Once this and certain other processes have been put into place, John Wells, with his own natural spirit of entrepreneurship and his belief in agile companies, would like to encourage a few experiments in different models that might present a better model in the long term.