Mark Greeven

Why organisations work with Mark Greeven

• He brings a working model of ecosystem competition built on close study of Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi and other Asian firms, not a Silicon Valley template.
• He has spent two decades inside Chinese innovation, which lets him translate what is happening in Asia into specific implications for European and North American boards.
• His “dual transformation” frame gives leadership teams a way to fund and govern the next growth engine without starving the current business.
• He has built what he advises others to build. He founded IMD China in Shenzhen, scaled it into a multi-million-dollar executive education business in three years, and co-directs IMD’s Future-Ready Enterprise programme with MIT Sloan.
• Thinkers50 has ranked him in 2023 and 2025 and described him as their “oracle for innovation in China,” and his recent HBR co-authored piece on Chinese AI was a finalist for the 2025 HBR Prize. Both give buyers a defensible third-party signal.

Biography highlights

• Professor of Management Innovation at IMD; founder of the IMD China Initiative and of IMD China in Shenzhen.
• Co-director of three IMD programmes: Building Digital Ecosystems, Strategy for Future Readiness, and Future-Ready Enterprise (the last delivered jointly with MIT Sloan School of Management).
• Author of Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Changemakers, and Underdogs (MIT Press, 2019), The Future of Global Retail (Routledge, 2021), and Business Ecosystems in China (Routledge, 2018).
• Co-author of “How Savvy Companies Are Using Chinese AI” (HBR, 2025), named a finalist for the 2025 HBR Prize. An earlier HBR piece was selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2023.
• Ranked on the Thinkers50 list in 2023 and 2025; Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2017.
• Founder of cross-border programmes earlier in his career, including the Chinese Economy and Business Programme at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Global Entrepreneurship Programme at Zhejiang University. PhD in Innovation Management from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

Biography

Most established companies are organised to defend a position they already hold. The harder problem is running that business at full performance while building a different one beside it, in markets where competitors do not play by the same rules. Mark Greeven’s work sits squarely on that problem.

He is Professor of Management Innovation at IMD and Director of the IMD China Initiative, with earlier faculty positions at Zhejiang University and Rotterdam School of Management, where he also took his PhD in Innovation Management. Two decades of fieldwork in China give his arguments an empirical base that most innovation speakers do not have.

His three books, Business Ecosystems in China (Routledge, 2018), Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Changemakers, and Underdogs (MIT Press, 2019), and The Future of Global Retail (Routledge, 2021), trace how named Asian firms, including Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, organise around platforms, partners, and continuous reinvention. He writes regularly for Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. One of his HBR pieces was selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2023; a more recent HBR co-authored piece on how companies are using Chinese AI was named a finalist for the 2025 HBR Prize. His current ecosystem research at IMD is supported by a three-year corporate sponsorship from AVEVA, Schneider Electric’s industrial software business. He also publishes Red Thread, a bi-weekly LinkedIn newsletter on China and global strategy.

Greeven has also built what he writes about. He founded the IMD China Initiative in 2019 and established IMD China in Shenzhen, growing it into a multi-million-dollar executive education business within three years. He has launched cross-border programmes at four institutions, from the Chinese Economy and Business Programme at Erasmus and the Global Entrepreneurship Programme at Zhejiang to IMD’s Future-Ready Enterprise Programme with MIT Sloan. In parallel, he has founded private companies in cross-border e-commerce, technology scouting, and management innovation advisory.

Thinkers50 has ranked him in 2023 and 2025, calling him their “oracle for innovation in China.” That mix of research, programme-building, venture creation, and direct access to Chinese firms is what gives his counsel weight for boards trying to read what Asian competition means for their next five years, and for executives trying to build a credible second growth engine without breaking the first.

Key speaking topics

• Business ecosystems and platform competition
• Innovation in China and Asia
• Dual transformation and second growth engines
• Future of retail and digital business models
• Strategy under sustained uncertainty
• Organising for innovation in large incumbents
• US-China commercial and technology dynamics

Ideal for

• CEOs and strategy leaders setting a multi-year growth agenda in the face of Asian competition.
• Boards and executive committees deciding how to fund and govern a second growth engine alongside the core.
• CSOs, CIOs, and innovation leads designing partner ecosystems rather than standalone product roadmaps.
• Multinationals with material exposure to China who want a clear read on competitive moves and policy direction.

Audience outcomes

• A clear read on how Chinese and Asian incumbents are competing, with named firms and specific moves.
• A working language for ecosystem strategy that boards can use without retreating to platform jargon.
• A practical view of how to run today’s business and build the next one in parallel, with the trade-offs named.
• Sharper questions for the next strategy cycle on innovation governance, partner choice, and capital allocation.