Biography

Prof. Dr. Raphaël H Cohen

Raphaël H Cohen doesn't lecture from theory — he's lived it: forty years founding, running, and occasionally failing at businesses across three continents, before turning what he learned the hard way into governance frameworks other people could use. Applying those same tools, he's since mentored more than 300 real projects — many of which even worked on the first try.

"Prof. Raphaël H. Cohen's strength is that he has always been both: entrepreneur and business angel on one side, professor and management thinker on the other. For decades, he has tirelessly pursued these two major endeavors in parallel — entrepreneurial thinking and action on one hand, academic work and the transmission of knowledge on the other."

Prof. Philippe Gabilliet, ESCP Business School — Dean of Executive MBA (2004–2009), Dean of Corporate Division (2010–2012), Dean of Full-Time MBA (2014–2017)

Origin of the Frameworks: Three Continents, Multi-Industry Experience

Raphaël's entrepreneurial education didn't start in a classroom. He joined Getratex SA — a Swiss company founded in 1957 — in 1975, where his first real business became one of the major players in licensing Disney characters for clothing, later securing exclusive Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes sportswear rights across the U.S. and continental Europe.

By 1990, he'd diversified into startup investing as a business angel, backing ventures across:

• Tourist attractions
• Software
• Trading
• Public-space theming
• Surface treatments
• Construction
• Financial derivatives

Every framework he now teaches was reverse-engineered from four decades of actually running these bets — not from watching other people run theirs.

Decades later, that same instinct for spotting what a market actually needs — rather than what theory says it should want — became the starting point for the IpOp Model, modeling and measuring fostered engagement as well as psychological safety, and turning executive education into a profit-making activity instead of a cost center.

The IpOp Model & ISO Standards

He designed the IpOp Model for pre-project calibration, which is one of the best practices recommended by ISO 56007 (Managing Opportunities and Ideas), unanimously adopted in 2023 by the 42 countries that developed it. This rigorous pre-project analysis is presented in "Concevoir et lancer un projet" (2016 and 2006), a stimulating book that has been a bestseller since its first publication. It has been translated into English ("Pre-project Excellence: Unleashing the Power of IpOp Model and ISO 56007 for Superior Project Outcomes and Selection"), German ("Exzellenz schon in der Vorprojektphase") and Spanish. The IpOp Model that is taught in executive education seminars and MBA programs empowers entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs to identify, analyze and seize opportunities that bring competitive advantages to their company.

Fostered Engagement

Raphaël is also an expert on fostered engagement, which is the topic of his book "Driving Employee Engagement: The Leader's Blueprint with Proven Practices for Team Excellence", the English translation of the French version published in 2019. He outlines in a structured framework the central role of fairness and benevolence in obtaining engagement through "just leadership" with the corresponding actionable tools. In both small and large organizations, Raphaël's approaches boost innovation, entrepreneurial behavior, selling effectiveness, business development as well as fostered engagement.

ISO Standards Development

Because of his extensive experience in innovation Raphaël has been actively engaged in designing a new set of ISO standards for managing innovation. As convenor of WG 3 for TC 279 he has been responsible for several years for coordinating the contribution of all international experts committed to produce ISO 56003, the standard on innovation partnerships, which has been adopted in 2019. He has also been one of the key contributors of ISO 56007, and is currently co-authoring ISO 56013 (in development), the draft international standard on innovation portfolio management.

Executive Education Programs

Raphaël also designed and runs AgilityBoosters / MicroMBA MB executive education programs customized to stimulate the agility and intrapreneurial behavior of middle and upper management in large companies such as Nestlé, Microsoft, banks as well as public sector organizations such as university hospitals. Since participants must find and implement real opportunities, their projects generate measurable profits exceeding by far the cost of the training programs. This profit-generating approach represents a paradigm shift in executive education. He has coached more than 300 real intrapreneurial projects.

MicroMBAs MB are the corporate version of the first four CREATE courses of Entrepreneurship for engineers and scientists in Switzerland (at both University of Geneva and EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) that Raphaël has designed and run until 2002, when he started the AgilityBooster/MicroMBA MB programs.

Publications

Raphaël's books have sold 40,000+ copies across English, French, German, and Spanish editions.

Pre-Project & Innovation

Fostered Engagement

Psychological Safety

Academic Positions

From 2001 to 2021, Raphaël has been academic director of the "Entrepreneurial Leadership" specialization of the EMBA at the University of Geneva, which has awarded him the title of Academic Fellow. He has also been the MBA European Academic Program Director of the Thunderbird School of Global Management (Phoenix, Arizona), where he holds the title of clinical professor. He has also been the only non-French member of scientific committee of Institut du Management, the French Post corporate university teaching management.

Advisory & Governance Roles

Beyond building his own ventures, Raphaël brings that hands-on experience to training, mentoring, and advising senior executives, bankers, directors, and entrepreneurs. He has served on the board of directors of several companies, including one Swiss bank for 27 years, and is a regular contributor to business publications including Forbes and Harvard Business Review France.

Education & Expertise

He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics in 1982 while managing an international group of companies. His diversified working experience on 3 continents and in many industries led him to develop expertise in innovation, leadership, strategy, business development, management, negotiation, sales, HR, coaching and mentoring, financial engineering, legal affairs (international taxation, licensing, real estate, M&A, etc.), asset management, turning-around businesses, interim and crisis management.

Key Achievements