In conversation with… David Bach
IMD Business School president David Bach talks to Ambition editor Colette Doyle about how competition forges resilience, why sustainability is fundamentally a leadership challenge and the benefits of cutting back on bureaucracy
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to take up the role at IMD “I grew up in Germany, but had the incredible opportunity to go to the US for college and graduate school – first in Connecticut and then in California. In San Francisco I met an amazing woman from Spain and we moved back to Europe together. “I took up my first faculty job at IE Business School in Madrid, where I was able not just to teach and do research, but also to get involved in programme management. My PhD was in political science, so it was a chance to understand what an MBA and business schools were all about. I really fell in love with the business of business schools. “What particularly appealed to me was combining teaching and research with the team-based, creative and hands-on work of directing programmes and innovating. I spent several years at IE, then eight years at Yale, before joining IMD six years ago, initially as dean of programmes & innovation and, for the past two years, as president. I still absolutely love that combination – being a faculty member while also developing and advancing the institution.” What have been some of your career highlights? “There have been many highlights, but what has always given me the greatest sense of impact is creating platforms for others: building something from which faculty, students and employers can benefit. “Three examples stand out in particular: the first was the IE Brown executive MBA programme, which combined the school’s strength in global management education with Brown University’s renown in the liberal arts. As somebody who went to the US to study liberal arts, the opportunity to marry those two worlds was very meaningful to me. “At Yale, I was one of the architects of the Global Network for Advanced Management, an idea that [American economist and former dean of the Yale School of Management] Ted Snyder had come up with, bringing together around
30 business schools. Thousands of students have since studied at another business school through the network. As a former international student myself, that was incredibly rewarding. “Then I joined IMD in 2020, when the pandemic had upended management education – and executive education in particular. Another highlight was working with colleagues and clients to rethink and reinvent IMD’s pedagogical model. “What those experiences have in common is working with teams, being creative and doing something that hasn’t been done before – creating platforms from which others can benefit long beyond my own involvement.” In the 21st century, with the rise of alternative providers such as LinkedIn and Coursera, how can the MBA continue to stand out and distinguish itself in the marketplace? “There’s plenty of competition among top business schools, but I don’t think LinkedIn and Coursera are really our main competitors. It’s a little like asking whether a scooter or a bike is in competition with a car. Sure, they both get you from A to B, but they’re very different things. “There is so much content available today, but business schools do a lot more than provide content. They identify talented people and bring them together in intense, group‑based learning experiences, where human connection becomes incredibly important. They also certify and credential learning in a way that is recognised. “I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years and every couple of years it seems business schools are about to close down because of some new technological, geopolitical or economic development. I don’t want to make light of those developments or the competition they create, but business schools have been remarkably resilient because we’ve continued to innovate and respond to change. Competition is a good thing – it makes sure we continue to challenge ourselves to do better.”
12 Ambition • ISSUE 5 • 2026
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