dr. Katharina Balazs

Dr. Katharina Balazs is Assistant Professor in the Strategy and Organization Department at ESCP-EAP in Paris, France. She has a PhD degree (Docteur ès Sciences de Gestion) from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Jouy-en-Josas, France. She holds a MA degree from Vienna University, Austria, a DEA from CNAM in Paris, and an MBA, as well as an MSc, from INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France.

She has worked as an organizational consultant in Sweden, Denmark, France, Austria, Germany and Hungary where she has led strategic consulting assignments in companies within different business sectors. In her consulting work, Dr. Balazs was specialized on strategic and cross-cultural management issues in companies undergoing inter-national mergers and acquisitions. She has also been active as a research associate in the Department of Leadership and Entrepre-neurship at INSEAD.

With a cultural background in Hungary, Austria and Sweden, Dr. Balazs has lived in France for the past nine years. She has also taught at INSEAD, Sciences Po and HEC and is active in Executive Development in a large number of organizations in various countries (e.g. Areva, Arcelor, Smurfit, Rexam, Societé Générale, Post Denmark, EDF-GDF, Aventis Pasteur, Total, etc.) She is also active as an organizational consultant designing strategies for improving individual and organi-zational performance in multicultural organizations.

She is the author and co-author of several books, scientific articles, cases, and research papers on leadership, organizational excellence, downsizing, and organization transformation and change. Her other research interests are entrepreneurship, cross-cultural management, and creativity, innovation in organizations. Her current research on the great chefs of France focuses upon the roles of leadership and innovation in achieving organizational excellence, with a book forthcoming in late 2008 entitled “Some Like it Haute: Leadership Lessons of the Great Chefs”.