Dr. Estie Alessandrini is the creator of the Female Brain Advantage, and specializes in NeuroLeadership Development. She helps executives and entrepreneurs transform their unique brain strengths to lead with impact. With a background in clinical medicine, science, and entrepreneurship, she innovatively translates brain science to drive individual growth, team excellence, and organizational success. She offers individual and team leadership development programs, cognitive assessments, and high-impact workshops.

As President of IMD, a position he has held since September 2024, David Bach is focused on making IMD the world’s most impactful business school. Together with his leadership team and the entire IMD community, he is working to broaden and deepen IMD’s global impact through learning innovation, excellence in degree- and executive programs, and applied thought leadership.

Bach was named 2026 International Educator of the Year by the Academy of International Business (AIB) in recognition of his global impact on business education.

Widely acknowledged as an innovator in management education, Bach previously served as IMD’s Dean of Innovation and Programs. Under his leadership, the school won multiple awards for groundbreaking pedagogy and executive programs. Before joining IMD in 2020, he was Deputy Dean at Yale School of Management, where he led the successful expansion of the school’s degree program portfolio and the creation of Yale Center Beijing.

Bach is one of the principal architects of the Global Network for Advanced Management, an alliance of 32 top global business schools from five continents, of which IMD has been a member since 2012. In 2025, he joined the Graduate Management Association Council (GMAC) Board of Directors, a global nonprofit association of leading graduate business schools that brings together future business leaders worldwide with educational opportunities.

As Nestlé Professor of Strategy and Political Economy, Bach helps leaders navigate the myriad political challenges facing business today. A celebrated teacher, his course ‘The End of Globalization?’ received the 2018 Ideas Worth Teaching Award from the Aspen Institute.

His research on nonmarket strategy, stakeholder management, and global politics has been published in leading practitioner and academic journals, including MIT Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Rotman Management, International Organization, Journal of European Public Policy, Governance, and Review of International Political Economy. He has published case studies on companies including TSMC, Rio Tinto, Volkswagen, IBM, AXA, Golden Agri, Playboy, Endesa, and BP.

Bach earned a BA magna cum laude from Yale University and holds an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Anand is an entrepreneur, researcher, and writer who has spent the last 15 years building and scaling startups that help make the world of work better. Today Anand is MD, Europe and member of the Leadership Team of Valence, an enterprise AI company and the makers of Nadia, the most widely used AI coach in the Fortune 500.

Prior to Valence, Anand started and scaled the Europe region for Emeritus, a Series F workforce and leadership development firm. Before that, Anand was one of the first hires at General Assembly, where he was responsible for the core growth of GA’s Enterprise business, the major strategic asset that enabled their acquisition by the Adecco Group for $400m+ in 2018.

Anand serves on the board of directors of Apolitical, a UK-based global learning platform for government civil servants, and Shortlist, an executive search firm based in Kenya. Since 2016, Anand has been regularly published in leading business journals from First Round Review to Harvard Business Review.

Anand grew up in India, spent 12 years in the US across university and work, and now lives in London with his wife and two sons.

Jonathan is a Non-Executive Director for Tandem Group plc and was until recently the Chief People Officer for Costa Coffee. Before Costa Jonathan was Group People Director at Halfords for over seven years and HR Director, Resourcing & Development at Specsavers. Prior to that he worked at Director level in HR for Lloyds TSB, Abbey, Zurich and BAE Systems.

Jennifer Jordan is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior. Her teaching, research, and consulting focus on influence, power, family business, women’s leadership, and leadership transitions. In 2019, she was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s leading business school professors under 40.

Jordan has received specialized training and certifications in lie and truthfulness detection, as well as in conflict resolution within organizations, and she has delivered custom programs and consultancy services for a wide range of companies, including Barilla, KONE, Shell, DSM, Cisco, Loomis, Pfizer, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Rolls Royce, Zurich Insurance, Honda, Nexthink, UBS, Siemens, Electrolux, and AIA Insurance. She has also worked with families through IMD’s Family Business Center in both custom and open programs.

At IMD, she is Director of Leading Digital Execution, Women on Boards, Advanced Leadership, and Leadership Essentials open programs.

Her work has appeared in numerous scientific journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Journal of Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, the Journal of Business Ethics, Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. She is also a member of the editorial boards of both Leadership Quarterly and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Katharina Lange is Affiliate Professor of Leadership. She specializes in teaching executives globally about leading self, leading teams, and leading organizations, and in building resilience at the individual, team, and organizational level as well as leading customer-centric organizations. She has a strong track record of designing and directing innovative executive education programs for virtual, face-to-face, and blended learning.

She directs IMD’s custom programs for Mondelez, BAE Systems and E&Y.

Lange’s teaching on self-leadership focuses on creating better awareness of a leader’s bright and dark sides. In her sessions, executives discover the key values that motivate and inspire them. Just as importantly, they discuss how to integrate their weaknesses with courage and humility into their (professional) lives and learn to speak from the heart.

Gillian has worked as a senior HR practitioner and OD specialist for several organisations including Swiss Re, Vodafone and BAA. Prior to her HR career, she was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and is also a qualified solicitor. Gillian has written various CRF reports on subjects including HR strategy, organisation design and development, leadership development, coaching and diversity.

Sarah Toms is Chief Innovation Officer at IMD. She leads information technology, learning innovation, Strategic Talent Solutions, and the AI Strategy. A demonstrated thought leader in education innovation, Sarah is passionate about amplifying IMD’s mission to drive positive impact for individuals, organizations, and society.

She previously co-founded Wharton Interactive, an initiative at the Wharton School that has scaled globally. Sarah has been on the Executive Committee of Reimagine Education for almost a decade, and was one of the ten globally to be selected as an AWS Education Champion. Her other great passion is supporting organizations who work to attract and promote women and girls into STEM.

She has spent nearly three decades working at the bleeding edge of technology, and was an entrepreneur for over a decade, founding companies that built global CRM, product development, productivity management, and financial systems. Sarah is also coauthor of The Customer Centricity Playbook, the Digital Book Awards 2019 Best Business Book.