Professor Philippe Haspeslagh
Professor of business policy at INSEAD, Phillipe Haspeslagh holds an MBA and a DBA from the Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He joined INSEAD in 1979, where he currently directs the Strategic Issues in Mergers and Acquisitions programme (1980- ) and the International Directors Forum (2002- ). He was a Visiting Professor at the Stanford Business School (1984-1985) and Harvard Business School (1992). He was on leave of absence (1996-1997) as “Directeur de Cabinet” of the Belgian Minister for Agriculture and SME’s.
Areas of Specialisation
His research and areas of specialisation cover four areas: Corporate Strategy and the Strategic process in Diversified Firms, the management of mergers and Aquisitions, the implementation of Value Based Management, and Board Effectiveness.
Career Background
Professor Haspeslagh has consulted widely on corporate roles, strategic planning in diversified firms, acquisitions management, and managing for value. He has conducted multiple Board effectiveness programmes and board reviews. He is a chairman, Audit Committee Chairman and Board member of several listed and unlisted firms, both industrial and in the private equity sphere. He is also a member of the Board of Overseers of the Vlerick School of management, the Academic Director of the European Council on Corporate Strategy of the Conference Board and was a Board member of INSEAD (1992-1995).
Professor Haspeslagh also has extensive public and private sector experience including a two-year leave as Director of Cabinet for the Belgian Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Agriculture. He is a co-founder and Board member of Quest for Growth, a listed fund for pre- and post- IPO investment in technology stocks, and a Board member in Kinepolis, a listed multiplex theatre firm. He is also a non-executive partner of Procuritas, a Scandinavian management buy-out firm.
Client Organisations
Professor Haspeslagh has been a consultant and a speaker on acquisition decision-making, acquisition integration and equal merger processes to many leading organisations worldwide such as Lloyds TSB, Boots, Cadbury Schweppes, Siemens and Lafarge.
Achievements and Publications
His work on portfolio Planning and the Management of Diversified Companies received the American Academy of management 1984 A T Kearney award for outstanding research in general management.
His book, “Managing Aquisitions: creating Value through Corporate renewal”, (with David Jemison, Free Press/McMillan 1991) received the Academy of Management’s 1993 George R. Terry Award for the most significant contribution to management.
His work on the implementation of value-based management was published in the Harvard Business review July-August 2001 (“Managing for Value: It’s Not Just About the numbers” with Tomo Noda and Fares Boulos).
His work on Board effectiveness gave birth to the international Directors Forum, a peer-based learning process for chairman and Non Executive Directors, and a series of company specific programmes for Company Boards.
Professor Haspeslagh won the 2005 outstanding elective Teacher award MBA Programme on the INSEAD Singapore Campus.
