Dr Joachim Timlon

Dr Joachim Timlon

The Department of Strategy and International Business
Assistant Professor of Strategy and International Business

Contact details

Address
Department of Strategy & International Business
Birmingham Business School
University House
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TY
UK

Joachim Timlon is an Asst Professor of Strategy & International Business (SIB), Birmingham Business School (BBS) at the University of Birmingham (UoB) where he teaches strategy, sustainability, and innovation. A specialty and uniqueness of his teaching is strategic board governance in start-up Unicorn companies, how boards actively can take strategic initiatives in sustainability, innovation, and digital transformation (DT) to contribute to value creation and corporate performance; and entrepreneurial venture scaling of management practices not only what but also how, where and when.

His research studies strategic choices and practices to grow and sustain rapid growth at scale, AI in strategy, and how to responsibly use generative as well as other forms of AI in start-up Unicorn companies in the global green tech (Greentech) and digital native businesses (DNBs). He has served as Program Director, and currently as module leader of FT MBA Strategy, designed and developed for the campuses in Birmingham, Dubai, and Singapore.

He is an often-invited visiting professor with extensive teaching experience from different levels, such as MBA and EMBA, from a variety of academic teaching institutions around the globe, such as University of the Arts, London; Toulouse Business School (TBS) in France, Luiss Guido Carli in Rome, Italy; Indian Institute of Finance, New Delhi; Seminole State College of Florida; and University of Hawaii at Mano, Shidler College of Business, Honolulu; and key note expert speaker invited, for instance, by the Chinese Government to the Top One Hundred Excellent Female Entrepreneurs Meeting and Exchange Forum in Beijing. Prior to joining the Business School, he was a management consultant at Alexander Proudfoot in London, member of a fast-growing start-up company in Sweden, and interim manager at IKEA in Rome, Italy. He holds a PhD and PhLic from Gothenburg School of Economics and Law, Sweden, and been awarded a Senior Fellowship of HEA (SFHEA). 

His teaching is informed by his pedagogic research and published as teaching cases used by himself as well as by many academic institutions around the world. One of his teaching cases - Why You Need an Innovation Strategy: Ford Motor Company tries to turn around with electric vehicles in China – has been used more than 500 times in almost 50 different academic institutions globally. The most recently published cases is a careful selection of different kinds of tech start-up Unicorn companies in Climate Technology (Greentechs), and Data Native Businesses (DNBs).

The cases capture a variety of aspects of sustainable growth and long-term development, such as why digital and AI leaders leave the rest behind, the rise of the AI powered company with AI automation in core processes at scale, not only marketing and innovation but also strategy, ethics from responsibly using generative and other kinds of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as diversity, equity and inclusion (ED&I) in Black Unicorns Founded and Lead by Black Women.

The cases provide students an opportunity to critically analyse how to build a business at scale in different industries, critically reflect on tech-enabling strategic building blocks used, and design and create a model to govern the launch and scale with value while accelerating towards Net Zero; and for teachers, to introduce strategic governance and provide arguments for why and how boards should actively engage in strategy, teach strategic governance with focus on how to evaluate the board’s strategic potential, that is, their engagement and debate of strategy based on their understanding of industry dynamics, and suggest how to spur high-quality engagement as well as assess the strength of the strategy by ‘pressure-testing’ the strategy itself, pinpointing more precisely where the strategy needs work, while generating deeper and more fruitful strategic dialogue. 

Expertise:

  • Strategy
  • Strategic Board Governance in Start-up Unicorn Companies
  • Entrepreneurship Venture Scaling (what, how, where, and when to scale)
  • AI in Strategy
  • AI and Ethics
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I)

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.),Gothenburg School of Economics, Department of Business Administration, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2005

Licentiate of Philosophy (Licentiate), Gothenburg School of Economics, Department of Business Administration, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1997

Master of Social Sciences (M.Sc.), Uppsala University, Department of International Business, Uppsala, Sweden, 1994.

Bachelor (BA), Lund University, Department of Business Administration, Lund, Sweden, 1992

Biography

Joachim is a Swedish national with experience from various academic positions, broad knowledge of program management principles and a strategic mindset to lead and develop educational programs. He has taught on Bachelor, Master, M.B.A. and Executive levels at higher education institutions in Europe, Middle East, India, China, South- and North America. He has been an official visiting scholar at fourteen educational institutions (some of the them repeatedly) in nine different countries. His background is in the industry as a management consultant in Strategy and Operations practices with direct experience from a variety of industries, and manager at IKEA Retailing in Rome, Italy. He has international work and living experience from seven countries, is fluent in English, German and Italian, basic knowledge of French and Spanish with Swedish mother tough. At the heart of his works resides an aspiration to contribute to a world we want to live in.

Teaching

Joachim has more than 8000 hours of teaching experience from Bachelor, Master, M.B.A. and Executive levels at higher education institutions in nine different countries in Europe, Middle East, India, China, South- and North America. He has taught marketing (B2B and B2C), sales and export management, strategy (corporate, business and functional) strategic management, sustainability, entrepreneurship, human resource management, international business, cross-culture management. His everyday teaching activities are guided and supported by his pedagogic philosophy, which emulates from the pioneering works of Malcom Knowles on adult learning (Knowles, 1973). This approach is used to develop effective learning environments and approaches to student support and guidance. His teaching role focuses on being a cognitive coach, highlighting the facilitative nature of the educator-student relationship (Biddulph & Osborne, 1984). To meet students’ learning needs, as a mental coach, he uses student centered, collaborative and interactive teaching strategies (Lea et al., 2003; Cooper et al., 1994; Bruffee, 1993).

During the years he has had many opportunities to design, plan and modify learning activities and programs of study for different cohorts of students in the role of program director and module leaders. He incorporates subject and pedagogic research (such as his own) within his professional practice as a teacher to support learning. Recently he was awarded a Fellowship at Higher Education Futures Institutes (HEFi): an academic qualification taken in England that demonstrates a personal and institutional commitment to professionalism in learning and teaching in higher education.

Research

His research is in the intersection of strategy, innovation, digitalization and people in a global context. He is interested in how organizations and individuals in them respond to change in relation to strategies and competitive advantage. In particular he focuses on how new technology (such as artificial intelligence), organizational culture, mind-sets and personality traits (such as novelty seeking) may lead to greater creativity and innovative performance to cope with change in global industries. He uses an interdisciplinary approach, which is needed to analyse, evaluate and improve dynamic processes of embedded and embedding innovative responses. His research is evidence-based with focus on understanding, critically analyzing and improving sustainable implementation, addressing different national and organizational contexts by identifying generalisable aspects and mechanisms of the way such innovations are adopted, adapted and embedded across different contexts. His research is applied in industries, such as Automotive (Ford, Honda and EV), Health Care (Smart Hospitals), French Haute Couture (Guo Pei, Iris van Herpen) and Luxury (Stella McCartney, Tiffany & Co, Van Cleef & Arpels).

’Innovation Strategies to Control and Grow a Global Market Niche - A Case of China's Design Queen Guo Pei in the French Haute Couture Industry’ has been accepted to be published by SAGE Business Cases in June 2020 with clips from the interview when he was filmed by SAGE last year. In progress are another 9 teaching cases on Innovation Strategies in a Global Context that span different industries, from the very high-end haute couture to the deprived and poor at the base of the pyramid.

Publications

Recent publications

Conference contribution

Timlon, J 2020, Innovation Strategy to Control and Grow a Global Market Niche – A Case on China’s Design Queen Guo Pei in the French Haute Couture Industry. in Innovation Strategy to Control and Grow a Global Market Niche – A Case on China’s Design Queen Guo Pei in the French Haute Couture Industry. SAGE Publications.

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Governance, Strategy, Sustainability, Innovation, Digitalization, New Digital Technologies