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Top 40 Bestselling Case Authors 2019/20

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No. 34 Bestselling Case Author 2019/20
Benoit Leleux

Benoit Leleux
Stephan Schmidheiny Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance
Institute for Management Development (IMD)

  
 
Benoit's top bestselling cases

CasesThe JMC Soundboard: Crossing the Sound Barrier
Jeanmichel Capt, a trained guitar luthier, had mastered the art of working with 'resonance spruce' from Switzerland’s Risoud Forest. Italian violin masters in the 17th and 18th centuries had first discovered the unique sound properties of resonant wood. Could Jeanmichel use these centuries-tested wood techniques to bring new dimensions to the world of loudspeakers?

The Carlyle Group and the AZ-EM Buyout (B): Value Creation After the Transaction
This is the second of a three-case series (IMD-3-2045 to IMD-3-2047). The Carlyle Group's investment committee, through a unanimous vote, gave Dr Robert Easton, the go-ahead to make a firm offer to acquire AZ Electronic Materials (AZ-EM) from Clariant. The deal was signed on 23 July 2004 by Easton and the CEO of Clariant. With the deal done, Carlyle's attention turned from deal making to creating value. This case explores the buyout, due diligence, managing transition, turnaround management, leverage, incentives and restructuring involved.

adidas Russia/CIS and the Russian Crisis: Retrench or Double Down (A)
The case series is based on extensive interviews with key executives at adidas Russia/CIS in charge of implementing the radical IT, supply chain and omnichannel initiatives that transformed adidas Russia/CIS from one of the poorest performers to the new standard within the Group.
Meet Benoit

BiographyBenoit is the Stephan Schmidheiny Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at IMD in Lausanne (Switzerland). He is the author of many books including his latest, Winning Sustainability Strategies: finding purpose, driving innovation and executing change, published in 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan.

He was previously Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD and Director of the 3i VentureLab and Associate Professor and Zubillaga Chair in Finance and Entrepreneurship at Babson College, USA, from 1994 to 1999. He obtained his PhD at INSEAD, specialising in corporate finance and venture capital.

His teaching cases have earned more than 20 European case writing awards so far over the past decade. Prior to his academic career, he was the head of corporate venturing for a leading agribusiness conglomerate in South East Asia. 
 
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“Management research and education are at an interesting crossroad: with a world becoming more and more unpredictable, recipes derived from historical datasets and large cross-sections are becoming less and less relevant, a fact compounded by the slow refereeing process in general. As an educator, it becomes more and more difficult to stand in front of a digital-native audience and argue that many ‘classic’ papers have much value left in them.

“So how do you figure out today’s and tomorrow’s issues, not yesterday’s? Case research offers that perspective, flushing out issues as they emerge. My primary driver in case research has always been to stay relevant in the classroom and bring ‘issues’ to discuss, not necessarily ‘answers’.

“Learning to live with ambiguities, dilemmas and fast-changing environments is what students need today. In that sense, case research becomes ever more relevant: we simply don’t have the leisure to wait for publications to introduce new knowledge in the classroom. On a personal level, the process is what really excites me, the intimacy developed with the case protagonists, the long-term relationships that often ensue, and the surprises every case brings…”

~ Benoit Leleux
 

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