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Quy Huy

Professor of Strategy

Biography

Dr. Quy Nguyen Huy has been professor of strategy at INSEAD since 1998 and chair of the strategy department from 2010 to 2012. He is known for his pioneering work linking social-emotional and temporal factors to the organizational processes of strategic change and innovation. Professor Huy has published over 80 works on strategic change, strategy execution and organizational innovation. His research has won 11 international awards and has been published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals such as the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal.

Professor Huy was ranked among the top 2 percent of most cited scientists in Business & Management (by a 2020 Stanford study that took into account the impact of each co-author’s contribution). His research on middle managers was published in Harvard Business Review as a “Breakthrough Idea for Today's Business Agenda." His work has garnered over 10,000 Google Scholar citations, over half of them attributed to five of his single-authored publications in prestigious scientific journals.

Prof Huy produces management research that is both scientifically rigorous and relevant for management practice – his work features in both academic and practitioner publications – a conviction forged by 20 years of management experience prior to his academic career. Initially trained as an electrical engineer—he graduated with distinction in Engineering from McGill University in 1978—he worked for 16 years in various managerial functions at several large IT firms in North America. As a telecommunications engineer he enthusiastically promoted digital transformation in the early 1980s. His managerial career covered systems and software engineering, sales and marketing of digital platforms, and corporate finance, where he dealt with institutional investors and credit rating agencies. He had experience of working on joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and turnarounds of firms with annual turnover up to 10 billion dollars. In 1994, he became a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and specialized in analyzing very large capital projects, capital structure and debt financing, and the valuation of business ventures and risks.

From 2001 to 2010, Huy joined world-renowned professors Henry Mintzberg and Jonathan Gosling to offer a pioneering management development program focused on developing diverse mindsets rather than traditional functional disciplines: the International Masters for Practicing Managers. An 18-month global leadership development program, it is offered by academic institutions in France, Canada UK, India, Korea and Japan. The pedagogy was described in a Harvard Business Review article, The Five Minds of a Manager (November 2003) and in Henry Mintzberg’s book, Developing Managers, Not MBAs. Professor Huy worked in various related teaching and leadership roles including Program Director of IMPM INSEAD: the Action Mindset, and as pedagogical and administrative director covering all academic institutions (2005-08).

Since 2011, Professor Huy has co-developed a cutting-edge action-learning training program on strategy execution for senior executives at INSEAD, with a focus on the intangible, hidden barriers in this domain. Covering organizational politics, collective emotions and organizational culture, it is practice- and data-driven. At the forefront of executive training programs in strategy execution, it is fed in part by Professor Huy’s world-leading research on this topic, teaching participants in how collective emotions and emotional capital enhance organizational innovation and how they impact the success of strategy execution.

Dr. Huy is involved in executive development, consulting and coaching for a wide range of for-profit and non-profit organizations worldwide. He is passionate about developing a new generation of scholars who aspire to conduct rigorous and relevant research by his teaching, coaching and working with advanced doctoral students and professors worldwide. He has developed one of the rare PhD-level courses on managing organizational change, and co-developed a course on strategy process research, one of the core doctoral strategy courses at INSEAD. His seminars on how to publish qualitative research in top academic journals are popular with scholars worldwide.

Dr Huy’s published work can be downloaded here

Latest posts

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Strategy

Developing AI With a Growth Mindset

T. Ojanperä, T. Vuori, Q. Huy

Nurture AI like you would a child.
1 comment

Strategy

Speed Kills: Why Some MNCs Fail to Pay Attention to Quality

Quy Huy

When managers are too fixated on quick financial results, ethics and service tend to take a backseat.

Strategy

In Age of Deglobalisation, MNCs Need Closer Ties to Thrive

Q. Huy, C. Moschieri, D. Ravasi

Cultivating relationships with local communities and other stakeholders will help multinationals counterbalance increasingly powerful governments.

Strategy

Could Green Methanol Be What China Needs to Reach Net Zero?

Quy Huy

Methanol produced with solar and wind energy is a clean and cheap alternative fuel that could slash China’s emissions by as much as 80 percent.
2 comments

Entrepreneurship

The New Normal for Innovation

Quy Huy

We’re entering a deglocalised world where firms must ceaselessly innovate in order to survive.

Strategy

Nokia’s Reinvention Was Emotionally Driven

Q. Huy, T. Vuori

No less than start-ups or SMEs, large organisations can accomplish a radical strategic shift – if they can regulate managers’ raw emotions in the aftermath of failure.

Strategy

Four Strategic Priorities for the Post-COVID-19 World

To build resilience going forward, the first question to answer is not, “What’s in it for me?” but “What if?”
3 comments

Entrepreneurship

How Leaders Should Navigate Long-Term Uncertainty

Quy Huy

Entrepreneurs and change managers may ultimately be selling a dream, but that’s not what stakeholders are buying.

Strategy

How Nokia Bounced Back (With the Help of the Board)

Quy Huy & Timo Vuori

To help the former mobile giant find a radically new strategic direction, Nokia’s board assumed a unique role.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Cultural Attributes of the Most Innovative Companies

Quy Huy & Zhixing Xiao

The case of China’s Longfor Properties proves that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is not a recipe for innovation.

Leadership & Organisations

How Happy Talk Can Ruin M&As

Quy Huy

Excessive politeness and positivity can be just as damaging as open conflict.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Automation Will Rescue Middle Management

We should view automation as an opportunity to liberate human managers.

Leadership & Organisations

Strategic Change Is All in the Timing

Quy Huy

Large organisations have many different heartbeats, and change managers need to listen to them all.
1 comment

Strategic Change Is All in the Timing

Large organisations have many different heartbeats, and change managers need to listen to them all.

Leadership & Organisations

The Emotional Sophistication Tomorrow’s Leaders Will Need

In an increasingly automated workplace, leaders should concentrate on uniquely human skillsets.
1 comment

Economics & Finance

How Business Can Respond to Populist Pressures

The rise of public-sector power obliges firms to get serious about emotional capital and rely on middle managers.

Strategy

The Harmful Effects of Workplace Incivility

Quy Huy

Low-level unpleasantness in the workplace can have disastrous results – but managers can do something about it.
4 comments

Economics & Finance

Why the Intellectual Elite Can’t Learn Its Lesson

Even after failing to predict Brexit and Trump, elites haven’t reckoned with their own limitations.
10 comments