IMD was formed through the merger in January 1990 of two independent management education centers created respectively by Alcan and Nestlé: IMI in Geneva (1946) and IMEDE in Lausanne (1957). It traditionally has strong ties with the European business sector.
It has been set up as a business school that solely provides executive education; it is determinedly not part of a university and there are no academic departments, but just one integrated multidisciplinary faculty. The professors do not have a lifelong tenure, but work under one year contracts and a performance based pay package. The faculty consiststs of 60 full-time members, made up of 22 different nationalities. The current President is John. R. Wells. His predecessor Peter Lorange, who run the school from 1993 till 2008, has been widely credited with having established the institute as one of the world's leading business schools
IMD has a strong focus on training and developing general management and leadership skills. IMD selects therefore experienced candidates for both the MBA (average age 31) and the EMBA (average age 39). Its other focus is to have a broad international group of participants attending the courses so that no specific nationality dominates. It intentionally doesn't set up auxiliary branches in other countries or continents, but wants to bring the participants together in Lausanne to stimulate cross-cultural interaction. Every year, some 8,000 executives, representing over 98 nationalities, visit the campus to attend one of the programs
The school's MBA program is a one-year program, which runs from January through December, with a short summer break. Classes are held 6 days per week, with one full weekend off each month. The school typically admits 90 students, and each class includes participants from many countries. The MBA program focuses strongly on general management, and as a result 70% of the graduates typically get recruited within the industry sector versus with investment banks and consulting firms, as is the case with the other major schools. [4]. Regular recruiters are Shell, Philips, Nestlé, Unilever, Novartis. The curriculum is designed to focus on real business experience.
