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Associate Dean & Director of International Graduate Programmes (MBA & MSc), Grenoble École de Management (GEM)

Mark Thomas, PhD is Associate Dean for International Graduate Programmes at Grenoble EM.

He holds a PhD from Lancaster University, UK looking at temporal adaptation and speed in the change process during mergers and acquisitions. His thesis offers a micro-foundation, behavioural perspective on strategic change management. He is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School and is a highly active member of the Harvard Alumnus Network.

He has published more than 40 peer review articles, monographs and book chapters and has presented his research at some of the world’s top academic conferences (EGOS, EURAM etc.) His research focuses on a variety of strategic management issues most notably M&As, strategic alliances, strategic change management and leadership.

His research has been published in academic journals such as the World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing, Strategic Direction, the Journal of Strategic Management Education, the International Leadership Journal and Development and Learning in Organisations. He has also written for the Financial Times, The Economist, Les Echos etc. He serves on several Editorial Advisory Boards.

He has worked in higher education in France for the past 20 years as professor, course director, director of business school programs and director of international affairs. He has worked extensively on a variety of international projects in some 30 different countries signed more than 80 international partnerships. Notable agreements with the universities of Cambridge, Columbia, Duke and McGill. He has also created and managed off-site campuses in China, the USA, the UK and Canada as well as establishing major alliance networks for international recruitment in higher education.

He has taught Corporate Strategy, Strategic Management and Leadership at Executive Education, Masters and Undergraduate level. He has worked extensively with senior executives particularly in the high tech, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and aviation industries. He has had visiting professorship at the University of Cambridge, UK, the University of Maryland, USA, Tongji Business School & Beihang University, China.

He has more than 15 years’ experience of working for national and international higher education accreditation organisations (AACSB, EFMD, CEFDG etc.). He currently serves on the EFMD Programme Accreditation Board and has been accreditation peer review member and chair for more than 10 years. He is accreditation mentor for both EFMD and AACSB and is the former Chair of the Associate Deans Affinity Group at AACSB. He has audited and assisted more than 30 business schools across the world in their accreditation processes.

He has also participated in international advisory groups for the French Ministry of Higher Education and worked for the regional council of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Region. He is the former President of the International Commission for the Alliance of the 40+ Grandes Ecoles of the region (AGERA) and currently serves as treasurer for this same organisation.

Experience

  • –present
    Associate Dean & Director of International Affairs at Grenoble Ecole de Management // Specialties: Strategic alliances both from a conceptual and practical, profit generating level. Leadership across stakeholder boundaries; creative problem solving; AACSB, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)

Education

  • 2013 
    Harvard Business School, Advanced Management Program (Finance; Strategy; Marketing; Management; Leadership; International Economics)