Fredmund Malik

Scientist, author, advisor and educator
Chairman of Management Center St. Gallen, Switzerland and
Malik Institute for Complexity Management, Governance and Leadership

Prof. Dr. Fredmund Malik is known as the pioneer of the state-of-the-art holistic systems-based management. His revolutionary navigation and management systems ensure effective and efficient functioning of organizations. The Malik ManagementSystems support top executives in mastering the big challenges of “The Great Transformation”. His innovative methods and tools apply where conventional management reaches its limits. They strengthen the range and effectiveness of institutional leadership as well as the manageability and viability of organizations.

With his consistent terminology and logic Malik’s approach sets a sound basis for a shared language and a coordinated coherent management understanding. And establishes compatibility and coherence of governance and leadership as pre-conditions for quick and adaptive action, for effective self-regulation and self-organization. In his more than 30 years of experience Malik personally and his staff have been educators, advisors and enablers of thousands of senior and top executives and their organizations in business and non-business.

Malik studied business economics, social sciences, systems theory, cybernetics, information theory, logic and philosophy of science at the universities of Innsbruck, Austria and St. Gallen, Switzerland. In the course of two outstanding research projects for the Swiss National Science Foundation for Basic Research he received his doctor’s degree in the “System Methodology for Complex Systems” in St. Gallen in 1974 and habilitated with his work on the “Strategy for Managing Complex Systems” in 1978.

He continued his academic career as Professor for General Corporate Management, Governance and Leadership at the universities of St. Gallen, Innsbruck and Vienna. From 1979 to 1984 he was Director of the Institute for Business Administration of the University of St. Gallen and was also named Chairman of the Management Center St. Gallen in 1977. Today, he is Special and Honorary Professor of the Capital University of Economics and Business (CUEB) in Beijing, IMAU and the Jilin University in China. Malik is chairman and member of several governance and supervisory boards.

In 1984 he also founded the renowned Malik Institute in St. Gallen that has shaped generations of executives and top executives. With its international subsidiaries and global partner networks, the institute has been among the leading knowledge organizations for General Management ever since. The institute is recognized for its pioneering innovations, including the Syntegration® method for the management of big change and for the great transformation of organizations as well as its highly effective enabling formats for senior executives.

Malik bases his work on the modern complexity sciences, systems theory, cybernetics, information and communication theory and bionics, algorithmics and heuristics. This resulted in innovative social technologies, models, methods and tools for designing, navigating and managing organizations―business and non-business―of every type and size.

Malik is the author of more than 15 books, many of them award-winning bestsellers, and some 300 publications. His classic Managing Performing Living was selected by a US-German jury amongst the best 100 business books of all time.

Books (selection)

Awards and former as well as current memberships (selection)