IMD Annual Report 2021

Faculty and Research 54

elea Center for Social Innovation

Led by IMD’s newly appointed EMBA Dean, Professor Vanina Farber, the center focuses on researching and sharing insights on the supply and demand of social innovation, from impact investing and ESG to social entrepreneurship and blended finance. Its goal is to inspire leaders in business, government and civil society to embrace social innovation across the global economy. The center’s capacity to deliver on this mission was boosted in 2021 with the recruitment of Katherine Milligan, Maximilian Martin and María Helena Jaén as the first Senior elea Fellows.

Ethics in Globalization, co-directed by Professor Arnaud Chevallier, and led a day on gender lens investing during a NEXUS Diversity and Inclusion Discovery Event. Research Center experts authored three book chapters and two academic articles that were published in 2021, covering themes such as market infrastructure for social ventures, subsidy design, sustainable business, stakeholder capitalism and gender and entrepreneurial propensity. A white paper on social innovation explored ways to mobilize private capital for impact and six cases studies shared insights on approaches to sustainability, investing and social innovation through the examples of brands such as Tesla, Chanel and Triodos.

Year in review

Programs The center continued its close involvement with IMD’s MBA and EMBA degrees in 2021. EMBAs were offered an online course in impact investing and ESG integration, while also participating in an immersive Discovery Expedition to Peru to explore the social entrepreneurship landscape and, ultimately, to make recommendations to impact investors. MBAs took part in a course on social and financial innovation, an International Consulting Project in Peru and a start-up project with social enterprise Montagnard. The elea team also delivered a custom program Leading for Impact with the elea Foundation for