Executive Education after the Pandemic

Business education and executive development has been one of the most fascinating industries in the world and the fastest growing segment of higher education over the past decades. Today, it is experiencing change on a scale unprecedented since the foundation of the first business schools in the early 20^th Century, both due to changes in the corporate environment and also due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across all industries. In this context how do you create world-class educational and training institutions that can cope with those challenges, and be rigorous, vocationally relevant and suited to the corporate growing needs in this new fluid world? And how do you combine the very best of traditional academic values with new learning technologies to create an educational model that is fit to compete in the global economy, threatened today by populism, nationalism and economic turmoil?

Yet, as daunting as it is, some institutions have already made significant progress in the journey.

In this book Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, President of IE University, and Peter Lorange, former President of IMD, bring together contributions from leading figures from some of the world’s major universities. They share their experiences in addressing some of the challenges that the industry faces today, such as diversity and inclusion, employability, the role of AI and the advent of innovative new platforms. Packed with case studies of successful initiatives in business education and executive training, this is a truly visionary book.  Authors anticipate future trends and share their in-depth knowledge of what it takes to build world-class educational providers – and their vision of higher education in the future.

“It presents invaluable insights, based on experience and real cases … . The book provides a guide for business schools, executive education centres and their corporate clients … . Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño and Peter Lorange have selected a broad range of topnotch contributors and revealing case studies to anticipate future trends and share in-depth knowledge … . Overall, the conclusions reached are positive and important reading for anyone involved in executive development.” (Peter Chadwick, IEDP, iedp.com, February 9, 2022)

Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño is the President of IE University and a recognized influencer in global higher education. He was the first recipient (2019) of the Founders Award by Thinkers50, the prestigious global ranking of thoughtful leaders in Management. 

He serves on the boards of Headspring, a joint venture between IE Business School and the Financial Times, offering custom programs for companies, as well as on the boards of IE Fund (US) and EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development). He is also a member on the advisory boards of Renmin University Business School (China), Antai Business School (Jiao Tong University, China), LUISS Business School (Italy), Mazars University (France), the Russian Presidential Academy (RANEPA, Russia), and FGV-EASP Fundaçao Getulio Vargas (Brazil). He is a past Chair of the Board of AACSB. 


Iñiguez is the former Dean of IE Business School and has played a leading role in business education. He was portrayed by the Financial Times as "one of the most significant figures in promoting European business schools internationally". He was the first European appointed as "Dean of the Year" by Poets & Quants (2017).



He is the author of The Learning Curve: How Business Schools Are Reinventing Education (2011), Cosmopolitan Managers: Executive Education That Works (2016), and In An Ideal Business: How the Ideas of 10 Female Philosophers bring value to the Workplace (2020), as well as co-editor of Business Despite Borders: Companies in the Age of Populist Anti-Globalization (2018), all published by Springer Nature Palgrave Macmillan.



Iñiguez is a regular speaker at international conferences and frequently contributes in different journals and media on higher education and executive development. He is one of the 500 Global LinkedIn influencers and in 2019 has been recognized as the leading Spanish influencer in Management by the Mexican magazine Entrepreneur.

Iniguez is Professor of Strategic Management. He holds a Degree in Law, a Ph.D. in Moral Philosophy and Jurisprudence (Complutense University, Spain) and an MBA from IE Business School. He was a Recognized Student at the University of Oxford, UK.

Prof. Dr. Peter Lorange is founder, Chairman and CEO of the Lorange Network, where he is currently active in cutting edge, digital business knowledge transfer for business owners, entrepreneurial families and larger private investors. He was formerly owner and President of the Lorange Institute of Business. Prof. Dr. Lorange is a successful entrepreneur and owner of a highly diversified family office, after having sold his shipping company in 2006. He is also regarded as one of the world’s foremost business school academics. For 15 years, Lorange was the President of IMD, Lausanne, one of Europe’s leading business schools. He was Professor of Strategy at IMD and held the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Chair of International Shipping. In addition to his academic background, he has gained extensive shipping know-how as director on several shipping company boards (Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Kvaerner, Seaspan). He also has board experience from ISS, Keystone Solutions (Oslo), Globalpraxis, Copenhagen Business School and many others. Lorange was educated at the Norwegian School of Economics, Yale University (MA in Operations Management) and Harvard Business School (DBA). Moreover, Prof. Dr. Lorange has written or edited over twenty books and more than 120 articles.