Peter B. Zemsky

Professor Zemsky has been a faculty member at INSEAD since 1994 and a member of the school’s leadership team since 2010. As Deputy Dean, he is responsible for external relations including fundraising, alumni relations and communications. As Dean of Innovation he is responsible for the school’s digital strategy including the development of its award winning online courses.

He has led all major departments at the school. As Dean of Degree Programmes he dramatically grew the Executive MBA programme, especially in Asia and the Middle East, and launched an MBA period in Abu Dhabi. As Dean of Executive Education, he spurred the expansion of the school’s offerings in digital transformation and innovation, growing revenues to over €100M for the first time. As Dean of Faculty he successfully introduced an evaluation and promotion system for the school’s cadre of Affiliate faculty.

He was recognized as the outstanding graduating economics major at the University of Pennsylvania and then pursued his doctoral studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, supported by a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship. Today, Professor Zemsky is a leading scholar in the economics of strategy, where he develops rigorous analysis of topics such as disruptive technologies, the trade-offs between value creation and value capture, and the choice of generalist versus specialist strategies. His doctoral students and have been recognized three times for having the best dissertation in strategy by the Academy of Management and have been hired by leading business schools including Wharton, NYU and HEC.

Professor Zemsky is a passionate educator. He teaches about strategy in the face of technology change and industry dynamics. He has taught across the school’s educational programmes, with several nominations for best MBA core teacher including when he was a visiting Professor at Wharton. He currently offers the popular online executive education course Strategy in an Age of Digital Disruption. He led the development of large scale customized online courses for leading companies including Accenture, Microsoft and Schneider Electric. These courses have been recognized with gold medals by the Chief Learning Officer’s Learning in Practice Awards for “Excellence in Blended Technology” and “Excellence in Academic Partnerships”, by Brandon Hall for “Best Results of a Learning Program” and “Best Unique or Innovative L&D Program” and by EFMD for “Excellence in Professional Development”.