The International Institute for Management Development, or IMD, is a small business school with its campus in Lausanne, Switzerland. IMD was was formed through the merger in January 1990 of two independent management education centers created respectively by Alcan and Nestlé: IMI Geneva (1946) and IMEDE Lausanne (1957). From this unique history IMD has developed a strong and clear focus on working in partnership with businesses today and for the future. It was 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. In the 90-person MBA class, there're about 40 different nationalities.

Programs
The school's MBA program is a one-year program that offers the full curriculum commonly offered by 2-year MBA programs. The program runs 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 approximately 80 students, and each class includes participants from many countries. The acceptance rate is 28%. Regular recruiters are Shell, Philips, Nestlé, Unilever, Novartis. The curriculum is designed to focus on real business experience through teaching predominantly business cases, instead of academic theory.

Rankings

Susan Kibler: MBA 2002, American, Director of Special Projects, J.M. Huber Corporation, USA
Virginia Porter: MBA 2002, Australian, Vice President, Investor Relations, Cable & Wireless, USA
Parminder Kohli: MBA 2001, Indian, Commercial Fuels Business Manager, UK, Ireland & Nordics, Shell Europe Oil Products, UK
Su-Mei Thompson: MBA 2001, Malaysian, Managing Director, Financial Times, Asia Pacific, Hong Kong
Susanne Schneider: MBA 2000, Norwegian, Attorney-at-Law, Partner, Steenstrup Stordrange DA, Norway
Mark Grambart: MBA 2000, Canadian, Vice President & General Manager, Industrial Business Unit, Huber Engineered Materials, USA
Andres Coles: MBA 2000, Venezuelan/Polish, Vice President, Mergers & Acquisitions, Rabobank Nederland, USA
Venkatesh Tulluri: MBA 1999, Indian, President, Kermel, France
Lynette Foo & Michael Schröter: MBA 1999, Australian & Swiss, CFO & COO, Lilly Systems Biology Pte Ltd, Singapore
Pauline Walsh: MBA 1998, Irish, Production Manager Mondeo Assembly, Ford Motor Company, UK
Stefan Steger: MBA 1997, Austrian, Managing Partner, Heidrick & Struggles International, Austria
Catriona Callender: MBA 1996, Australian, Managing Director, UK Theatres, Clear Channel Entertainment Theatre, UK
Shashank Tripathi: MBA 1995, Indian, Chief Executive Officer, Inaltus Ltd, UK
K.Y. Lee: MBA 1990, Taiwanese, President, BenQ Corporation, Taiwan
Oern Stuge: MBA 1989, Norwegian, SVP & President, Medtronic Cardiac Surgery, Medtronic Europe Sarl, Switzerland
Jürgen Fischer: MBA 1988, Swiss, President, Commercial Operations Group, Hilton International, France
Eva von Rohr: MBA 1983, Swiss, Director, Von Rohr & Associates SA, Switzerland
Carlos Rivera: MBA 1983, Mexican, Owner & Managing Director, Management Recruiters International, Mexico
Nick Shreiber: MBA 1975, Argentinian, President & CEO, Tetra Pak Group SA, Switzerland
Claude Hauser: MBA 1972, Swiss, Chairman, Migros, Switzerland
Jon Fredrik Baksaas: President and CEO, Telenor, Norway
Svein Aaser: CEO, DNB NOR ASA, Norway
Gerard Stricher: CEO, Sidel, France
Bryan Sanderson: Chairman, Standard Chartered Bank PLC,UK
Michael Patsalos-Fox: Chairman, The Americas, McKinsey & Company INC, US
Bo Risberg: CEO, Hilti Corporation, Liechtenstein
Paul Choffat: CEO, Novartis Consumer Health, Switzerland
Thomas Schmidheiny: Chairman, Holcim, Switzerland
Bjarni Ármannsson: CEO, Glitnir Bank, Iceland