Driving Strategic Innovation @MIT

IMD Business School

Innovation

About Programme

Innovation has become the defining capability of leaders who want to shape the future. Yet, breakthrough innovation demands more than new tools or processes; it requires a deep understanding of how value is created, how emerging technologies enable differentiation, and how the right organizational culture can support bold, strategic choices.

No matter what role you play in the innovation process, Driving Strategic Innovation empowers you to rethink innovation and technology strategy, offering practical tools to innovate business models, redesign value chains, and implement solutions that deliver measurable impact. It addresses technical trends, organizational and talent issues, corporate strategy, and the likely impacts of AI on all of these.

Through highly-interactive faculty-led sessions, hands-on exercises, and real-world reflections, you’ll explore how ideas form, evolve, and scale within high-performing organizations. Throughout the week, you’ll participate in applied sessions to generate and develop ideas, learn from entrepreneurial practices, and tackle team-based challenges that bring culture, leadership, and strategic thinking to life, helping innovation take hold across your organization.

A fresh lens on the strategic role of AI is woven throughout the experience, including the use of AI-supported tools, helping you explore how leaders can use analytics, data-driven insights, agentic AI, and emerging competitive dynamics to build distinctive capabilities.

By the end of your journey, you’ll leave with a richer understanding of innovation leadership, and the ability to influence corporate culture, orchestrate partnerships across the value chain, and activate innovation as a core strategic capability.

A hallmark of the program is the alliance between IMD and MIT Sloan, a partnership that merges world leading research with practical, executive level insight. Participants benefit from decades of faculty expertise as well as the diverse perspectives of peers from around the world.

Redefine how you approach innovation

Develop a clearer, more deliberate way of working through early-stage ideas and strategic choices.

Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset

Apply proven entrepreneurial practices such as speed, agility, diverse teaming, and network-led innovation to strengthen how your organization works.

Spot new opportunities

Understand how markets, technologies, and value chains are giving rise to new opportunities, including the rapidly evolving role of AI.

Ideate new solutions

Generate bold ideas, practice rapid prototyping, explore new business models, and refine your thinking with input from faculty and peers.

Influence corporate culture

Encourage the behaviors, collaboration, and leadership that help ideas grow and take hold across the organization.

Programme Content

Innovation dynamics and entrepreneurial ecosystems

Explore how innovation happens in high-velocity environments like Silicon Valley.

Understand the merits of small, flat structures, diverse teams, and network-driven ecosystems.

Examine how all advantages are temporary, and how industries follow predictable evolutionary paths.

Learn how to nail brew ideas, scale them, and sail into the future.

Business model innovation and organizational culture

Learn how S-curve analysis and adaptability inform better managerial choices.

Explore business model innovation, new revenue streams, and how AI is already reshaping innovative business models and competitive dynamics.

See how innovation extends across the entire supply chain, and how learning and leadership behaviors influence innovation outcomes.

Value creation, capture, and analytics

Understand how value is created and captured, and how customer expertise affects buying decisions.

Explore how firms use data analytics to differentiate and how agentic AI changes strategic resources and competitive landscapes.

Future-readiness, teaming and leadership

Learn what distinguishes future-ready firms, and how they earn this distinction.

Examine behavioral considerations in team formation, teaming dynamics, and the “smart skills” that support effective innovation leadership.

Integrating your learning

Conclude the week with a team-based challenge using AI models to create vivid, shareable lessons learned from the program.

Testimonials

"This is not just another top management course, it’s a life-changing experience. I didn’t just want to learn about lateral or wishful thinking, I wanted structure – tools and models that would help me guide innovation confidently and strategically."

Ana Martin

Global Head of Strategy and Innovation

"This program offered a great chance to connect and engage in rich discussions with executives facing similar challenges. It opened blind spots I had in executing and strategizing, and gave me a clear plan to start innovating in our sector."

Giacomo Bonfanti

Havas Media Network

"Successful innovation depends on the quality of your conversations. This management training program gives you stimulating topics, inspiring teachers, and a fantastic group of participants raising the level of conversation."

Pradipt Kapoor

Spain

"Driving Strategic Innovation program is great. The faculty helped me build a decisive mindset, a daring vision and gave me the tools to turn innovation into success."

Beatrice Nurdin

CEO

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Grupo Desarrollo Infrastructura

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Vice President, Products and Solutions Engineering, Sita, UK

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