IMD Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) 2026: Complete Executive Programme Guide

Programme Overview and Global Rankings

IMD Business School’s Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) stands as the world’s most acclaimed open executive education programme. Ranked number one globally in open programmes by the Financial Times for four consecutive years, OWP delivers what few programmes can: a five-day intensive experience where up to 450 international executives from over 50 nationalities converge to learn from 30 of IMD’s leading faculty members and world experts.

The programme’s fundamental philosophy is encapsulated in its tagline: “Real World. Real Learning.” Unlike conventional executive education that follows a fixed curriculum, OWP empowers each participant to create their own learning journey by selecting from a rich menu of plenary sessions, specialized streams, wellness activities, and evening keynote presentations. This customizable format means that a CEO focused on digital transformation and a functional manager interested in leadership development can both attend the same programme yet have entirely different—and equally valuable—experiences.

OWP runs annually in two editions: Lausanne, Switzerland during the summer months and Singapore in late autumn. Each edition offers a completely new programme with fresh content, ensuring that repeat attendees—and many participants do return year after year—always encounter new thinking, new research, and new perspectives. The programme covers over 20 hot topics including strategy, digital transformation, leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship, finance, family business, governance, competitiveness, and globalization.

What makes OWP particularly powerful is the combination of intimate learning environments (streams typically have around 30 participants) with the networking scale of a large international gathering. Participants benefit from face-to-face faculty interaction in small groups while building relationships across a diverse community of executives representing over 30 industries. For professionals exploring other top-tier executive programmes, our guide to the Wharton Executive Presence and Influence programme provides an interesting comparison from a US institution.

The Customizable Learning Journey Format

The OWP format is built around five daily components that participants mix and match to create their personalized executive development experience. This structure reflects IMD’s understanding that senior executives have diverse and specific development needs that cannot be served by a one-size-fits-all curriculum.

The day begins with plenary sessions from 8:30 to 9:30 AM, where participants choose one session from multiple options covering cutting-edge business topics presented by IMD faculty and visiting experts. These large-format presentations introduce provocative ideas and frameworks that participants then explore in greater depth through their chosen streams. Past plenary topics have included the global economic outlook and its business implications, leadership in high-turbulence environments, the competitive landscape reshaping industries, and the psychology of deception in business relationships.

The core of each day is structured around two stream sessions—one morning (10:00 to 12:30) and one afternoon (14:00 to 16:30). Participants select one morning stream and one afternoon stream for the entire week, allowing for sustained, deep engagement with their chosen topics rather than superficial exposure to many subjects. Stream topics span the full range of executive competencies: strategy, digital transformation, leadership, innovation, finance, family business, governance, and competitiveness. Each stream is led by one or more IMD faculty members and combines lectures, case studies, group exercises, and discussion.

The late afternoon brings “Activities for the Complete Executive”—a programme component that reflects IMD’s commitment to holistic executive development. These sessions promote better mental, physical, and emotional health, recognizing that sustainable high performance requires attention to the whole person, not just business skills. Whether through mindfulness sessions, physical activities, or reflective exercises, these activities help participants rediscover their sense of purpose and build the resilience needed for sustained leadership.

The programme day culminates with keynote speakers who deliver mind-expanding talks designed to inspire and challenge conventional thinking. These evening sessions, followed by networking dinners, create the conditions for the serendipitous conversations and relationship-building that many participants cite as OWP’s most enduring benefit.

Core Streams and Topic Areas

OWP’s stream offerings represent the full spectrum of executive development needs, with each stream combining theoretical frameworks with practical application. The strategy streams examine how organizations build and sustain competitive advantage, covering topics from strategic partnerships and simple strategy principles to structured flexibility in fast-changing environments. IMD faculty like James Henderson and Goutam Challagalla bring both academic rigor and consulting experience to these sessions.

The digital transformation streams have become increasingly central to OWP as organizations across every industry grapple with technology-driven disruption. Led by Michael Wade, who holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation, these streams cover topics like competing in the digital vortex and leading digital transformation strategy. The inclusion of cybersecurity as a stream topic reflects the growing recognition that digital strategy must encompass both offensive innovation and defensive resilience.

Leadership streams are among the most popular and most diverse offerings at OWP. Rather than presenting a single model of leadership, OWP offers multiple leadership streams that explore different dimensions of the leadership challenge. The Dynamic Tensions of Executive Teams stream examines the interpersonal dynamics that make or break senior leadership groups. Paradoxical Leadership explores how the most effective leaders excel at seemingly contradictory styles—being both collaborative and decisive, both visionary and detail-oriented. Dissonant Leadership pushes participants to explore the uncomfortable dimensions of leadership that conventional programmes avoid.

Innovation streams draw on the research of faculty like Bill Fischer, Howard Yu, and Charles Dhanaraj to help participants develop practical approaches to driving innovation within their organizations. The design thinking stream connects innovation with strategy, teaching participants to apply design methodology to strategic challenges. Finance streams provide the quantitative literacy that non-finance executives need, while family business and governance streams address the specialized challenges facing family-owned enterprises and corporate boards.

This breadth of offering means that OWP serves an unusually diverse participant base. A technology company CTO might spend mornings in the digital transformation stream and afternoons studying paradoxical leadership, while a family business heir chooses family business in the morning and governance in the afternoon. Both leave with development experiences precisely targeted to their needs. For those interested in how business schools approach innovation education more broadly, our guide to the EM Lyon Master in Management explores a different approach to developing innovative thinking.

World-Class Faculty and Keynote Speakers

OWP’s faculty roster reads like a who’s who of global business education and practice. Up to 30 leading professors and business experts contribute to each edition, creating an intellectual density that is virtually impossible to replicate outside a programme of this calibre.

Michael Wade, Programme Co-Director and holder of the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on how digital technologies disrupt industries and how organizations can respond strategically. His research on the digital vortex—the zone of convergence where industries are pulled toward a digital centre—has influenced how executives worldwide think about technology-driven competition. Working alongside Wade, Dominique Turpin brings decades of marketing strategy expertise as President of IMD and the Nestlé Professor, ensuring that OWP maintains its focus on competitive advantage and market positioning.

The leadership faculty features Bill Fischer, whose work on innovation has made him a regular contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review; Ben Bryant, who specializes in the uncomfortable truths of leadership through his dissonant leadership research; and Jennifer Jordan, whose research on ethical decision-making and deception detection addresses critical challenges facing today’s executives. Robert Hooijberg and Martha Maznevski bring complementary perspectives on paradoxical leadership and cross-cultural management respectively.

Industry expertise is represented by faculty like Nandkishore Doreswamy, who brings perspectives from his career as a senior Nestlé executive, and Tawfik Jelassi, a former Tunisian government minister who offers first-hand lessons on leading large-scale transformation in high-turbulence environments. This blend of academic research and practical experience ensures that OWP content is both intellectually rigorous and immediately applicable to participants’ business challenges.

The evening keynote speakers expand horizons beyond conventional business topics. These mind-expanding talks are designed to challenge assumptions, spark creativity, and provide the unexpected connections between ideas that fuel breakthrough thinking. Past keynotes have covered topics from geopolitics and global economics to psychology and cultural trends, reflecting IMD’s belief that the most effective executives are those with the broadest perspectives.

Lausanne Edition: Lake Geneva Campus Experience

The Lausanne edition of OWP takes place on IMD’s campus on the shores of Lake Geneva, one of the most beautiful and inspiring settings in executive education. Located just 40 minutes by road or rail from Geneva International Airport, the campus provides the perfect environment for intensive learning combined with the restorative effects of a world-class natural setting.

The Lausanne programme runs Monday through Friday with a carefully structured daily schedule. Morning plenary sessions from 8:30 to 9:30 offer participants their first choice of the day, with topics ranging from the world economic outlook to key competitive trends and CEO learning dilemmas. The morning streams run from 10:00 to 12:30, and participants choose one stream for the entire week—options include strategic partnerships, design thinking, behavioural change, digital transformation strategy, executive finance, family business, dissonant leadership, and competitiveness and value creation.

Afternoon streams from 14:00 to 16:30 provide the second pillar of each participant’s learning journey. Lausanne afternoon offerings include geopolitical streams on the future of China, leadership streams covering executive team dynamics and paradoxical leadership, strategy streams on winning the fight for future growth, governance streams examining successes and failures worldwide, and a cybersecurity stream addressing the personal and organizational dimensions of digital security.

The Activities for the Complete Executive slot from 16:45 to 17:45 provides a welcome transition between afternoon learning and evening programming. Evening keynote speakers from 18:00 to 19:15 deliver their inspiring presentations before participants gather for networking dinners at 19:30—events that consistently generate the relationship-building and idea exchange that participants value as highly as the formal programme content.

Switzerland’s position as a global hub for international business, banking, and diplomacy adds a contextual richness to the Lausanne experience. Participants benefit not only from IMD’s world-class facilities and faculty but from the cosmopolitan environment of a country where multiple cultures, languages, and business traditions intersect daily.

Singapore Edition and the Mega Dive

The Singapore edition of OWP offers a distinct experience, combining OWP’s proven format with Asia-focused content and a unique closing feature—the Friday Mega Dive. Delivered by IMD Southeast Asia Pte Ltd, the Singapore programme positions participants at the crossroads of the world’s fastest-growing economic region while maintaining the quality and faculty access that define OWP globally.

The Singapore schedule features some structural differences from Lausanne. Plenary sessions run from 8:30 to 9:30 on Monday through Thursday, with participants choosing from options including the impact of digital technologies on managers, global innovation readiness, competitive landscape trends, organizational design for the 21st century, changing bad habits, and building Asian leadership in multinational corporations. This last topic, led by Margaret Cording, addresses a critical leadership challenge for multinational organizations operating in Asia.

Streams in Singapore operate on a split-week format. Monday and Tuesday offer one set of four stream choices, while Wednesday and Thursday offer a different set of four. This structure allows participants to engage with two different streams across the week rather than one, providing broader exposure at the cost of somewhat less depth in each topic. Stream options include leadership in globally networked companies, innovating locally and leveraging globally, strategic finance, competing in the digital vortex, winning hearts and minds, family business navigation, strategy implementation, and innovation fitness.

The Friday Mega Dive is unique to the Singapore edition and represents one of OWP’s most distinctive learning experiences. This intense full-day team collaboration exercise runs from 8:00 to 15:00 and is facilitated by a team of senior faculty including Cyril Bouquet, Bill Fischer, Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez, Amit Mukherjee, Michael Wade, and John Weeks. The Mega Dive promotes out-of-the-box thinking to solve critical business challenges, encouraging participants to dive deep into strategic problems and resurface with insights that would be impossible to achieve through conventional analysis alone. For executives interested in how other programmes approach intensive learning formats, our Carnegie Mellon Tepper MBA guide discusses alternative intensive learning methodologies.

Individual vs Team Participation Options

OWP offers three distinct participation pathways, each designed to maximize value for different organizational needs. Understanding these options helps prospective participants and their sponsoring organizations choose the approach that best aligns with their development objectives.

Individual participation is the most common pathway and appeals to executives seeking personal development, exposure to new ideas, and expansion of their professional network. Individual participants select their own streams based on their specific development needs, interact with executives from diverse industries and geographies, and return to their organizations with fresh perspectives and practical frameworks. The combination of world-class faculty instruction with peer learning from a diverse executive cohort creates a uniquely rich development experience that individual study or in-house training cannot replicate.

Team participation allows organizations to send groups of executives who work together on real business issues throughout the programme. Teams select streams that align with their shared strategic priorities, using the OWP frameworks and exercises as catalysts for building commitment around common strategies and identifying capability gaps. The team format ensures that learning is not lost in translation when participants return to their organizations—instead, the entire team shares a common language and set of tools that can be immediately applied to strategic challenges.

Company-specific team options represent the most customized pathway, allowing organizations to work directly with IMD faculty on particular challenges. This premium option includes pre-programme preparation, custom coaching during the programme, and post-programme follow-up to ensure sustained impact. Companies using this option gain clarity on strategy and build the team dynamics needed to turn strategic intent into organizational action. Availability is limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis, particularly for the Singapore edition.

The team offer providing the fifth participant free creates a compelling economic incentive for organizations sending groups, effectively reducing per-person costs by 20% for teams of five. This pricing structure, combined with the programme’s proven ability to build team alignment and commitment, makes OWP an attractive option for organizations investing in collective leadership development.

Fees, Logistics, and Application Process

OWP’s pricing reflects its position as the world’s premier open executive programme. The Lausanne edition is priced at CHF 10,900 per participant, with an early bird rate of CHF 9,900 for those who register before the deadline. Additional participants from the same company and IMD alumni pay CHF 8,900, and the fifth participant from any company attends free of charge. The Singapore edition carries fees of SGD 15,900, SGD 13,900 (early bird), and SGD 12,900 (additional participants and alumni), with the same fifth-participant-free offer. Singapore fees are subject to 7% GST for Singapore-registered companies and residents.

Fees cover tuition, programme materials, meals during the programme, and access to networking events. Accommodation is typically arranged separately, though IMD provides assistance with hotel recommendations near the campus. The Lausanne campus’s proximity to Geneva International Airport (40 minutes by road or rail) and Singapore’s position as a major international hub ensure that both editions are accessible to a global participant base.

The application process is straightforward, conducted through IMD’s website with support available via phone (+41 21 618 07 00) or email. Given OWP’s popularity and capacity constraints—particularly for company-specific team options—early registration is strongly recommended. IMD reserves the right to modify programme dates, locations, and fees, so prospective participants should confirm current details at the time of application.

For organizations evaluating the return on investment, OWP’s compressed five-day format represents an efficient use of executive time compared to longer programmes that require weeks away from business responsibilities. The ability to send teams and take advantage of volume pricing further strengthens the business case, particularly when combined with the company-specific options that ensure direct application to current strategic priorities.

Career Impact and Alumni Network

OWP’s impact on participants’ careers operates through both immediate skill development and long-term network effects. The programme identifies seven specific ways it transforms executive performance: building leadership competencies quickly, providing roadmaps for digital transformation, preparing for agile innovation, boosting team results, developing family business excellence, introducing participants to a global network, and taking executives beyond their daily workplace for productive reflection.

The IMD alumni network is one of the most valuable and enduring benefits of OWP participation. With 100,000 executives across 140 countries, including 11,000 at board level or C-suite, the network provides access to a global community of senior business leaders. This network creates opportunities for mentorship, business partnerships, career transitions, and the kind of peer-level advisory relationships that are increasingly recognized as essential for effective executive leadership.

Participant testimonials consistently highlight the programme’s exceptional efficiency—achieving transformative learning impact in just five days. Henrik Dahlgaard of Basico P/S describes OWP as “the best program I know of to achieve so much in just one week,” while Ioana Canescu of IBM calls it “the best example of what IMD can deliver in a short space of time.” These endorsements from repeat participants and senior executives across industries underscore OWP’s ability to deliver on its ambitious promise. For those evaluating different executive MBA options alongside short programmes, our Vlerick Business School MBA guide explores how traditional MBA programmes approach similar leadership development goals.

The complete executive philosophy—integrating mental, physical, and emotional development with business skills—creates lasting changes in how participants approach their roles. Executives who attend OWP often report not only improved strategic thinking and leadership capability but a renewed sense of purpose and energy that sustains their performance long after the programme concludes.

How IMD OWP Compares to Other Executive Programmes

In the competitive landscape of executive education, OWP occupies a unique position that reflects several distinctive design choices. Understanding how these choices compare to alternative approaches helps prospective participants assess whether OWP is the right fit for their development needs.

OWP’s most obvious differentiator is its fully customizable format. While most executive programmes offer a fixed curriculum that all participants follow, OWP’s stream-based structure allows each individual to design a learning journey tailored to their specific needs. This flexibility is particularly valuable for senior executives whose development needs are highly specific and who resist being placed in generic programmes. The trade-off is that participants must take ownership of their learning design, which requires self-awareness about development priorities.

The five-day compressed format distinguishes OWP from longer executive programmes that may require two to four weeks of attendance. For executives whose organizations cannot spare them for extended periods, OWP delivers high-impact development in a commercially realistic timeframe. The intensity of the experience—with learning activities spanning from 8:30 AM through networking dinners—ensures that no time is wasted, but also requires participants to arrive physically and mentally prepared for full immersion.

The dual-location model (Lausanne and Singapore) offers geographical flexibility that few programmes match, while also providing genuinely different content in each edition. The Singapore Mega Dive, in particular, is a unique format that has no direct equivalent in competing programmes. This collaborative intensive creates breakthrough thinking by forcing participants out of conventional analytical frameworks and into creative, team-based problem-solving.

Faculty access at OWP is exceptional—with up to 30 professors and experts per edition, participants encounter a breadth and depth of expertise that single-faculty programmes cannot provide. The combination of IMD’s own faculty with visiting industry experts and former senior executives ensures that every topic is addressed from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

Prospective participants should weigh these strengths against their specific circumstances. The premium pricing places OWP at the upper end of executive education investments. The customizable format, while empowering, means that the experience quality depends partly on the participant’s ability to select streams that genuinely address their development needs. And the week-long residential format, while highly efficient, still requires a full working week away from business operations—a consideration that shorter or modular programmes avoid.