Rhoda Davidson

Rhoda Davidson is an experienced educator, business consultant, and entrepreneur. She has worked in executive education for over twenty years at top global institutions such as IMD and Duke CE. Before this she was a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company and also established a boutique consulting company focused on strategic innovation partnering with large multinational companies.

Education

• Ph.D. in Mgmt. Science – HEC, University of Geneva, Switzerland
• MBA with distinction - INSEAD, France
• D.Phil - Oxford University, United Kingdom
• M.A. Natural Sciences - Cambridge University, United Kingdom

Expertise

Rhoda’s expertise is in designing and delivering customized strategic innovation programs to assist large multinational companies to resolve tough strategic challenges and exploit strategic opportunities. Her work over the last ten years has focused on creating and testing action learning techniques based on open innovation and design thinking. Together with her colleagues, she has developed a wide suite of practical tools that can be used by executives and to create and embed innovative strategic change.

First at IMD and then through her own consulting company, she has worked on a wide variety of strategic initiatives including!

• Designing large scale corporate transformation programs
• Addressing specific mission critical strategic issues with top management teams, business unit or functional management teams
• Developing and delivering customized action learning programs for top talents. Rhoda’s clients have included senior managers from Aker Kvaerner, Borealis, Canon Europe, Carlsberg, DNV, E.on, Heineken, ING, KONE, Mars, Nordea, Skanska, Visa Europe, WWF and many others.

Over the last ten years she has worked with executives on over one hundred different strategic innovation challenges encompassing such diverse topics as go-to-market strategy, IP strategy, risk-based governance systems, supply chain redesign, sustainability strategy, and many more.

Before working in executive education, Rhoda worked for the management consultant McKinsey & Company in the oil & gas and industrial sectors. Over the last years she has taught EMBA students in several different programs in Europe and China.

Keywords:

Strategic initiatives * Piloting * Open innovation * Strategic change management * International business * Knowledge transfer * Strategic alliances * Institutional change * Strategy consulting

Research Interest

• Strategic initiative strategy & implementation
• Open innovation
• Strategic & institutional change
• International business
• Strategic alliances

Publications

ACADEMIC ARTICLES (2)

‑ Billington, Corey, Davidson, Rhoda. 2013. Leveraging Open Innovation Using Intermediary Networks.Production and Operations Management, 22 (6): 1464–1477 p.

‑ BUCHEL, Bettina, Davidson, Rhoda. 2011. The Art of Piloting New Initiatives.MIT Sloan Management Review, 53 (1): 79-86 p. BOOKS (3) ‑ Davidson, Rhoda. 2013. Global Industrial Trends. Genève: EIPM

‑ Billington, Corey, Davidson, Rhoda, , Henderson, James. 2009. Global industrial trends: 90 exceptional people who will shape the future of business : the IMD MBA class of 2009. Lausanne: International Institute for Management Development 141 p.

‑ Gilbert, Xavier, BUCHEL, Bettina, , Davidson, Rhoda. 2008. Smarter Execution: Seven steps to getting results. London: Pitman Pub. 174 p. BOOK CHAPTERS (3) ‑ BUCHEL, Bettina, Davidson, Rhoda. 2010. Adoption of Strategic Initiatives: The Role of Global Teams during Piloting., More than Bricks in the Wall: Organizational Perspectives for Sustainable Success: A tribute to Professor Dr. Gilbert Probst. : Springer, 25-32 p.

‑ BUCHEL, Bettina, Davidson, Rhoda. 2008. The Art of Piloting: Starting with a pilot may be the best route to executing big strategic changes., Riding the winds of Global Change. : Lausanne : International Institute for Management Development, 75-82 p.

‑ Gilbert, Xavier, Davidson, Rhoda. 2005. Client Initiated Projects in Partnership Programs., Mastering Executive Education:How to combine content with context and emotion - The IMD Guide. : London : Pitman Pub., 450-469 p.