Faculty & Research

For the first time in many years, we recruited no new resident faculty members over the course of 2020/2021. However, in September 2021, we were proud to welcome Lite J. Nartey as Visiting Professor of Strategy and the inaugural professor of our new INSEAD Africa Initiative Fellow Programme – see the Centres and Initiatives section to learn more about the INSEAD Africa Initiative. The academic recruitment process has now resumed in preparation for September 2022. Meanwhile, with few departures or retirements in 2020/2021, the strength and depth of our faculty has been maintained.

Although cultural diversity remains a key strength, INSEAD continues to strive for greater gender diversity among its professors. While the overall percentage of faculty who are women now stands at 23%, it is close to 40% among junior ranks. We are currently working towards a public commitment for women to comprise 50% of new faculty hires as part of our membership of the HeForShe Alliance.

Gender remains a significant research topic, as well as a key theme for teaching materials developed by faculty. To underline our commitment, in May 2021 the INSEAD Gender Initiative co-hosted the third Diversity, Equity and Inclusion academic meeting, with delegates from all leading business schools.

The school took time during the year to strengthen its internal processes and governance, with a complete revision of the Faculty Guidelines. There were also several promotions, effective as of 1 September 2021, notably: Paulo Albuquerque (Marketing) to Full Professor; Michaël Bikard (Strategy) and Henning Piezunka (Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise) to Associate Professors with Tenure; and Erin Meyer (Organisational Behaviour) to Professor of Management Practice.

The other main changes of the year concerned leadership of the Faculty and Research departments. In January 2021, Javier Gimeno assumed the role of Dean of Faculty, taking over from Laurence Capron, under whose management the faculty achieved record size and gender-balanced recruitment. Professor Gimeno (Strategy) has been at INSEAD since 2001. He has an outstanding record in research, teaching and programme direction, and has won many awards over the course of his career. He has already held the leadership positions of Dean of Executive MBA and Academic Director of the PhD Programme, and currently holds two Chairs: the Aon Dirk Verbeek Chair in International Risk and Strategic Management and the Sauvage Family Endowed Chair for Academic Excellence.

In September 2021, Lily Fang (Finance), took over as Dean of Research from Ziv Carmon, who, during his tenure, significantly raised the level of support for INSEAD research, improved the conversion of scholarly output for consumption by practitioners and worked closely with other departments, such as Advancement. Professor Fang conducts pioneering research to understand the impact of mass media on financial markets. Her broad research interests also include intellectual property rights protection, innovation, and workers’ social capital and career outcomes, especially in terms of gender difference. She has a deep appreciation of collaboration across all areas of business scholarship and is the AXA Chaired Professor in Financial Market Risk.

As usual, INSEAD faculty won their usual abundance of awards and competitions during the academic year. However, in June 2021 there was a rare celebration indeed: a “Festschrift” symposium in honour of economics professor, Philippe Aghion – and his co-author Peter Howitt – to mark the 30th anniversary of their book, A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction. The four-day Zoom event united more than a hundred distinguished economists and was addressed by French President, Emmanuel Macron.

Other notable achievements for celebration include the election of Steve Chick, Novartis Chaired Professor of Healthcare Management, as a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in honour of his lifetime contributions to the subject. Professor Theos Evgeniou was also appointed as a World Economic Forum Academic Partner for Artificial Intelligence.

In addition, Philip Anderson, the INSEAD Alumni Fund Chaired Professor of Entrepreneurship, became the fifth winner of the INSEAD Dominique Héau Award for Inspiring Education Excellence. The award celebrates the recipient’s passion for teaching, pedagogical innovation and mentoring of colleagues – all traits shared by the late and much-missed Professor Dominique Héau.