Amit Joshi

Why organisations work with Amit Joshi

• His work gives leaders a precise diagnosis of the “islands of excellence” problem – why AI generates results in one function but fails to cross organisational boundaries – and a practical application logic for what has to change structurally and strategically for it to scale.
• His 2025 book The AI-Centered Enterprise introduces the 3Cs framework: Calibrate, Clarify, Channelize, a practical decision architecture for leaders redesigning organizations around context-aware AI, grounded in documented case studies across multiple industries.
• He publishes in both Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review and has twice won the MSI/H. Paul Root Award for best paper in the Journal of Marketing: a combination that places analytical rigour and commercial applicability in the same conversation.
• As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Agentic Implementation program and Director of its Generative AI for Business Sprint, he works continuously with senior executives from banking, pharma, telecoms, and retail navigating live AI transformations, not retrospective case analysis.
• Named one of Switzerland’s Digital Shapers in 2020 by a consortium of Swiss media including Bilanz, Handelszeitung, and Le Temps: one of a small group identified as shaping the European digital economy.

Biography highlights

• Professor of AI and Strategy, IMD Business School, Lausanne; joined IMD in 2017
• Co-Director, AI Strategy and Agentic Implementation program; Director, Generative AI for Business Sprint and Business Analytics for Leaders program, IMD
• Author of The AI-Centered Enterprise (2025) and GAIN: Demystifying GenAI for Office and Home (2025)
• Two-time winner of the MSI/H. Paul Root Award for best paper in the Journal of Marketing (2010 and 2015); Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award (2006)
• Named a Digital Shaper by Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps, and Digitalswitzerland (2020); voted favourite professor by IMD MBA Class of 2024
• Published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Science; cited in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, NPR, CNN, and Forbes
• Led panel discussion at the World Economic Forum, Davos (2020)
• PhD, UCLA Anderson School of Management; PGDM, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

Biography

Most senior leaders now have AI running somewhere in their organisation. The harder question – one that Joshi has built a body of work around – is why it rarely runs everywhere. As Professor of AI and Strategy at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Amit Joshi directs the Generative AI for Business Sprint and co-directs the AI Strategy and Agentic Implementation program, working with executives from banking, pharma, retail, and telecoms on both the strategic and application decisions that determine whether AI scales. His work with organizations across banking, pharma, retail, telecoms, and financial services has produced a sharply specific diagnosis of where enterprise AI goes wrong: not in the technology, but in the organization built around it.

The concept he returns to is what he calls “islands of excellence”, AI that works in one function, under one champion, without the structural conditions to spread. His 2025 book The AI-Centered Enterprise, co-authored with Ram Bala and Natarajan Balasubramanian, addresses this directly. The book’s 3Cs framework – Calibrate, Clarify, Channelize – gives leaders a practical architecture for moving from point-solution AI to systems that understand organizational context, intent, and workflow. His earlier book GAIN, co-authored with Michael Wade, makes the strategic case that generative AI is a paradigm shift, not an upgrade, and that the organizational response should reflect that distinction.

His research on marketing strategy, analytics, and AI applications has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He has twice won the MSI/H. Paul Root Award for best paper in the Journal of Marketing and was named one of Switzerland’s Digital Shapers by a consortium of Swiss media in 2020. His analysis is regularly covered in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, and NPR, and he led a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Joshi holds a PhD from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a postgraduate management diploma from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He started his career as a sales manager at Cadbury India: a background that continues to shape an approach to AI strategy grounded in commercial reality rather than technical possibility.

Key speaking topics

• Enterprise AI strategy and scaling
• Generative AI implementation
• Context-aware AI and organizational design
• Data and analytics capability building
• AI and commercial strategy
• Digital transformation leadership
• Building AI-ready organisations

Ideal for

• C-suite leadership teams shaping or accelerating enterprise AI strategy
• CDOs, CTOs, and Chief Analytics Officers leading AI and data transformations
• Boards evaluating AI investment priorities and organizational readiness
• Senior executive education cohorts in banking, pharma, telecoms, retail, and financial services

Audience outcomes

• A named diagnostic framework for identifying where and why AI is stalling in their organization
• Clarity on the distinction between context-aware AI and point-solution AI, and its strategic implications for investment and organizational design
• A practical model – the 3Cs: Calibrate, Clarify, Channelize – for moving from AI pilots to scaled enterprise capability
• A sharper understanding of how data infrastructure, organizational structure, and AI strategy need to be aligned, not sequenced
• The ability to evaluate AI proposals against a strategic rationale rather than a technology roadmap alone