INSEAD professors among The Case Centre's top 50 best-selling case authors of 2025-2026

A Swiss watchmaker striding into the smartwatch era. A country singer from a Nashville café who became a billion-dollar entertainment powerhouse. Greece's first unicorn, shaking up a centuries-old industry. An insurer run on AI and behavioural economics.

These are some of the stories that have made INSEAD cases a fixture in classrooms around the world and helped six INSEAD faculty members made it to The Case Centre's latest list of the top 50 best-selling case authors. The ranking, for 2025-2026, is based on the author’s overall sales performance across all their cases distributed by The Case Centre during the preceding academic year.

Felipe Monteiro, Professor of Management Practice and Academic Director of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI), rose to no. 4 on the annual ranking, up an impressive eight positions from last year. His cases explore transformation through technology, digital innovation and AI, each offering a distinct perspective and drawing on experiences from different regions of the world.

“This recognition really belongs to the executives who open their doors to us and share their dilemmas so candidly,” says Professor Monteiro. 
“What I find most rewarding is that cases written in Fontainebleau, about companies from Switzerland to Brazil, are being used in classrooms around the world to help leaders think through digital and AI transformation. That is what being ‘The Business School for the World’ means in practice.”

One of his most recent cases, “Digital and AI Transformation in Latin America: A Leapfrogging Opportunity?”, co-authored with Laís Victoria Ometto (INSEAD MBA'27J) and Anne-Marie Carrick, examines whether the region can turn digital and AI into a genuine development strategy across fintech, healthtech, edtech, agritech and legaltech. Another best-selling case, “The TAG Heuer Carrera Connected Watch (A & B): Swiss Avant-Garde for the Digital Age”, co-authored with Anne-Marie Carrick, explores the digital disruption facing the Swiss luxury brand. It won The Case Centre's "Outstanding Case Writer – Disruptive Change" award in 2018.

Professor Monteiro leads a cohort of other prolific INSEAD faculty in the Case Centre’s ranking.

Professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute and authors of the multi-million-selling books Blue Ocean Strategy and Beyond Disruption, are ranked sixth, marking their 11th consecutive year as among the top 10 best-selling case authors. Their cases explore how companies create “blue oceans” of untapped market space, pursuing new opportunities rather than competing head-to-head in crowded “red ocean” markets. 
A prime example is the recently released "Taylor Swift's Blue Ocean Strategic Moves: How She Stood Out and Succeeded in the Crowded Entertainment Industry”, co-written with Institute Fellow Melanie Pipino. It traces the star’s transformation from a country singer in a Nashville café into a billion-dollar global entertainment powerhouse. While talent, timing and luck played a role, it was a series of bold and innovative “blue ocean” strategic moves that created uncontested space in the industry. 

Stanislav Shekshnia, Senior Affiliate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise, rose to the no. 23 spot this year. His best-selling case “Emmanuel Faber at Danone: Man on a Mission (A, B, C)”, co-authored with Professor Ludo Van der Heyden and Elin Williams, explores the role of active board governance and the impact activist investors can have on corporate governance and leadership stability at the top. It also illustrates the challenges listed corporations can face when committing to sustainability and ESG goals.

Wolfgang Ulaga, Professor of Management Practice and Co-Director of INSEAD Marketing & Sales Excellence Initiative (MSEI), secured the no. 41 spot and his 11th consecutive year in the top 50. His cases emphasise business model innovation and B2B customer solution sales. 
Professor Ulaga’s best-selling cases during the last year include "Lemonade: Delighting Insurance Customers with AI and Behavioural Economics - A Disruptive InsurTech Business Model for Outstanding Customer Experience and Cost-effective Service Excellence", co-authored with Professor Ziv Carmon and Laura Heely (INSEAD MBA'17J). The case, which won the marketing category award in The Case Centre competition in 2023, explores the impact of digital disruption on the insurance sector and its customer experience transformation.

Ludo Van der Heyden, Emeritus Professor of Technology and Operations Management and the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Corporate Governance, is a new entry in this year’s ranking, securing the no. 43 spot.
His latest case “PeopleCert: A Greek Unicorn Leveraging Digital for Organizational Efficiency and Upskilling”, co-authored with Professor Theodoros Evgeniou, Lila Despotidou, Katerina Pramatari and George Doukidis, is one of the best sellers in INSEAD Publishing’s free case collection. The case unpacks the growth story of PeopleCert, the first unicorn of Greek origin, and examines technological innovation disrupting a centuries-old business.

We leave the last word to Professor Van der Heyden: “Teaching your own cases makes teaching greatly more informed and authentic. In addition, collaboration with colleagues enriches the class discussion and more aptly reflects the multi-faceted nature of business situations.
“It’s been a while since I committed to using material I have my own views on and am well-informed about. It makes classroom interactions more memorable for our participants and more fun for the instructor.”