IMD International Search Group Partners Meet in Vienna, Austria

IMD International Search Group Partners gathered on May 3-5, 2018 in Vienna, Austria for their Annual General Assembly.

The busy agenda for this meeting focused on:

• Sharing business ideas through interactive networking sessions and best practices,
• Working together on solving case studies with concrete situations in difficult international searches,
• Developing knowledge on a topic that was voted by the members: Artificial Intelligence and its impact on our business.

Dr. Philipp Gerbert, Senior Partner & Managing Director Munich, The Boston Consulting Group, delivered an amazing learning session and explained to IMD members what AI is in technical terms, the new industrial revolution that is breaking through, and what it all means for company structures, production, the essence of work, management, recruitment and consequently executive search. The good news being that executive search, as a very holistic process, is difficult for an AI to learn. AI may help with some tasks but will not replace us humans!

Elections were called to renew 4 mandates of Board members: Dr. Matthias MOHR, President; Dr. Peter SUTTER, VP, Finance & Legal Affairs; Anita OTTERHEIM HJALMARSSON, Director, Standards, Execution, Quality, Best practices, Leadership consulting; Rodolfo SOMMER, Director, Onboarding, Membership acquisition in South America; And to elect a new Board member, Jose Ruiz, Director, Marketing, External communications.

Last but not least, present members warmly cheered the winners of our two Member of the Year Awards: GMPTALENT International, IMD China, receiving the Award for Business Excellence for their outstanding participation in the organization's activities, and Dr. Heimeier & Partner, IMD Germany, for having generated the highest fees in interbusiness.

During this meeting were handed two awards for Member of the Year:

• DR. HEIMEIER & PARTNER, IMD Germany, was for the second year in a row awarded the International Business trophy. Dr. Heimeier & Partner is one of the oldest member firm in IMD, as the company joined in 1989. The company Partners have always developed close and qualitative relations with mid-size companies in various sectors, which have regularly recruitment needs abroad. In 2017 Dr. Heimeier & Partner's team was able to refer trustful clients to neighbouring Czech Republic or Poland as well as to China. The award for the highest contributor to IMD interbusiness is again well deserved.
• GMPTALENT INTERNATIONAL, IMD China won the Award for Business Excellence. This award was earned for GMPTALENT's outstanding participation in the IMD organization. Created in 2012 in Shanghai by David Wu, the firm is a boutique retained executive search and HR advisory firm operating in Greater China and the Asia region. GMPTALENT is an AESC member and delivers high quality services to Chinese and foreign companies in industries such as Consumer, Life Sciences, Industrial or Financial Services. A member of IMD since 2016, GMPTALENT has been a very committed and qualitative partner of our organization, in the delivery of business referred as in the involvement in all our activities.