René Abate is Senior Vice President in the Paris office of The Boston Consulting Group. He has recently published a book on the history of the largest French companies, called ‘Trajectoire d’exception: à la découverte des plus grandes enterprises française’.

Karel Cool holds the BP Chair of European Competitiveness and is Professor of Strategic Management at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He has consulted for many international companies on major problems of corporate and industry restructuring and is the Associate Editor of the Strategic Management Journal.

James Henderson holds the Tejabaipul Term Chair and is Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Babson College in Wellesley, MA. He works on many strategy-related topics for international companies.