Howard Yu is a Hong Kong-born academic and author who is the LEGO professor of management and innovation at IMD Business School. He is also the director of Advanced Management Program and Future Readiness Strategy open program of IMD.
Yu is the author of the book, Leap and was the recipient of the Thinkers50 Strategy Award in 2023.
Yu joined the faculty of IMD Business School in 2011. In 2017, Yu was appointed director of the Advanced Management Program, and he co-directs the Strategy for Future Readiness program alongside the Future-Ready Enterprise initiative. In 2020, Yu became the director of the IMD Center for Future Readiness, which was established with the help of The LEGO Group.
In 2021, Yu led the development of the Future Readiness Indicator, a rule-based methodology that uses publicly available data to assess organizational resilience.
As of 2026, Howard is the LEGO professor of management and innovation at the IMD Business School.
Writing
In June 2018, Yu published Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied, which received a Gold Medal at the 2019 Axiom Business Book Awards and was named among the best business books of the year by Inc. and Strategy+Business. The book was published by PublicAffairs, New York, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It was also selected as an FT Business Book of the Month in the same month of 2018.
Research
His research focuses on the dynamics of innovation and sustainable growth, specifically examining how organizations build capabilities to navigate technological disruption and commoditization. A theme of his scholarship is the "leap" strategy, which details how firms can jump to new knowledge frontiers to maintain a competitive advantage over imitators. His research also focuses on Asian economies.
His recent work includes Future Readiness Indicators for several industries to gauge industry incumbents' preparedness.
Bibliography
Yu, Howard H.; Shih, Willy C. (2018). Taiwan's PC Industry, 1976–2010: The Evolution of Organizational Capabilities.
Yu, Howard (2018). Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can be Copied
Yu, Howard (2018). Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied. PublicAffairs. ISBN978-1610397609{{isbn}}: Check isbn value: checksum (help).
Honors and awards
Yu is recipient of the Thinkers50 Strategy Award in 2023 and the 2015 Poets & Quants "Top 40 Business Professors Under 40" ranking. He was also included in the Thinkers50 Ranking of the world’s top management thinkers in both 2023 and 2025. He has also received multiple EFMD Gold Awards and Case Centre accolades for his research on digital transformation and organizational development.
12"Reinvent rules of the game to beat copycats: Howard Yu". The Business Times. October 9, 2018. Archived from the original on May 29, 2026. Retrieved May 29, 2026. [...] A former banker from Hong Kong, Prof Yu received his doctoral degree in management from Harvard Business School, [...] Prof Yu has worked on hot-button issues such as the risks and opportunities for companies presented by Big Data, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. [...] Throughout the years, Prof Yu's research and consulting work has largely focused on Asian economies [...]
