Misiek Piskorski

Why organisations work with Misiek Piskorski

• His proprietary multi-step framework reduces digital transformation to five or six sequenced decisions – giving leadership teams a replicable process to own and implement, not a theory to absorb and interpret.
• A Social Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2014) – the first book to use large-scale proprietary platform data to explain how companies build competitive advantage from social platforms – introduced three named diagnostic tests (social utility, social solution, and business value) that practitioners can apply to any platform investment decision.
• His transformation programmes are designed to span the full organisational hierarchy: CEO-level strategic advisory, top-team execution, middle-management education, and organisation-wide capability building – which means transformation logic does not stop at the boardroom door.
• As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Implementation programme, he connects AI adoption directly to competitive strategy rather than treating it as a technology or operations question – giving executive teams a frame that boards can act on.
• Custom programmes delivered for organisations including Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and the Asian Development Bank mean his frameworks have been stress-tested across industries and geographies, not built in one sector and applied to others by analogy.

Biography highlights

• Professor of Digital Strategy, Analytics and Innovation and Dean of Executive Education, IMD Business School, Lausanne
• Previously Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit, Harvard Business School (ten years); prior faculty appointment at Stanford University Graduate School of Business
• Author of A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media (Princeton University Press, 2014) – winner of the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal, 2015
• Research published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces
• EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award 2019, Organisational Development category, for the Siam Commercial Bank digital transformation programme
• Co-Director, AI Strategy and Implementation programme, IMD; Programme Director, Developing Digital Transformation Strategies (IMD online)
• Associate Editor, Journal of Organization Design; editorial board member, Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, and Organization Science

Biography

Misiek Piskorski spent two decades studying why digital transformation succeeds or stalls – working first at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and then at Harvard Business School before joining IMD in Lausanne in 2014. The answer, he argues, is almost never about technology. It is about the sequence of strategic decisions that determines how digital capabilities translate into competitive advantage.

His book A Social Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2014) was the first to draw on proprietary data from platforms including Facebook and LinkedIn to explain the commercial mechanism behind social platforms. The argument – that companies must first help users meet social needs that cannot be satisfied offline before asking for any commercial return – won the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal in 2015. Three diagnostic tests introduced in the book (social utility, social solution, and business value) give executive teams a practical tool for evaluating any platform investment.

At IMD, his work is deliberately structured to span the full organisation. Custom programmes for Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and the Asian Development Bank move from CEO-level strategy through top-team transformation projects to executive education for middle managers and digital learning at scale. As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Implementation programme, he applies the same sequenced-decision logic to AI adoption – connecting implementation directly to competitive strategy.

His research has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He received the EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award in 2019 for his collaboration with Siam Commercial Bank on digital transformation, and serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Organization Design.

Key speaking topics

• Platform strategy and competitive advantage
• Digital transformation decision frameworks
• AI strategy and enterprise-wide implementation
• Social platform economics and business value
• Data analytics and strategic decision-making
• Digital business model design
• Organisational digital capability building

Ideal for

• CEOs and senior leadership teams navigating digital transformation at enterprise scale
• Chief Digital Officers and Chief Strategy Officers assessing platform and AI investment decisions
• Boards and executive committees evaluating digital readiness and competitive positioning
• CHROs and Learning & Development leaders designing organisation-wide digital capability programmes

Audience outcomes

• A named, sequenced decision framework for planning and executing digital transformation across the organisation – not a conceptual model but a structured process
• Practical diagnostic tools (social utility, social solution, and business value tests) for evaluating whether a platform or digital investment is likely to create competitive advantage
• A clear model for distinguishing digital activity from digital strategy – and for identifying where current transformation efforts are likely to stall
• Understanding of how AI adoption decisions connect to competitive positioning rather than remaining isolated as technology or operations questions
• A working vocabulary for the five or six strategic decisions that determine whether transformation programmes deliver at scale