Who is Prof. Dr. De Cremer?

Professor David De Cremer is a behavioral scientist and consultant with a specific interest in managing and leading individual and organizational transformations. Currently he holds the KPMG-funded chair in management studies at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Before moving to the UK, he lived in Shanghai (China). He received several career awards for his scientific work, was named the most influential economist in the Netherlands (2009-2010), is a fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science and in 2016 he was named a Global Thought Leader by the Trust Across America – Trust Around the World organization, whose annual list recognizes people for efforts “in elevating societal trust.

His specific expertise concerns developing knowledge and applications to understand more deeply how leaders can be effective and transforming, how building trust can be used as business asset, what it takes to manage and lead China’s business transformations, and why ethics-based compliance should be the future perspective in the corporate and financial world. He provides services as a speaker and consultant that spans the levels of knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and knowledge implementation.

He is an advisor to the Ethics-based initiative of Novartis International AG (pharma) in Basel (Switzerland), a corporate ambassador to Huawei Technologies in Shenzhen (China) and an executive coach to several CEO’s. He has considerable experience in executive teaching and corporate consultancy at a global scale.

Global experience

Having lectured and studied management and behavioural processes in Western countries, the United Arab Emirates, China and India, David De Cremer has considerable experience in understanding what makes business tick at a global level. His expertise shows that when it comes down to understanding human behaviour across cultures we may appear to differ above the surface, but if we look deeper (below the surface) then we may be more alike than we actually realize. Arriving at a better understanding of these (unknown) similarities and differences can provide your organization a competitive advantage.

Check out his Harvard Business Review piece here on understanding differences and similarities in trust building between the West and China.

Evidence-based consultancy

Bringing the latest academic work to live requires an understanding of what happens in the business world and at the same time seeing the parallels with what we know from our research. David De Cremer strongly believes in the art of evidence-based management and consultancy where daily business decisions find their foundation in accurate scientific knowledge tested to reveal the best business results.

Testimonials

I have had the good fortune of attending Prof David’s sessions on Responsible Leadership. While one may think that it is obvious hat integrity plays an important role in the work place, Prof David helped me to realize and understand the circumstances that can lead one into the grey areas of ethics. His approach of putting things in a practical way helped me to master a few concepts, which I use in my day to day activities. Even though there are several self- help books in relation to this topic in the market, I feel that unless one can connect with those concepts using your own prior experiences, one doesn’t realize the significance of these concepts. What Prof David does really well is, question the experiences that we have had, to look at them again and to understand what we could have done differently. Hence, with Prof David’s’ help, quite a few of us have been able to understand the fine line that stands between us and making a definitive mistake, that can take us down the ‘Slippery Slope’ of irresponsible leadership and harm our reputation. Whenever I meet my batchmates, we end up having at least one conversation which is inspired by our learnings from Prof David. I thank the Professor for teaching us perhaps the most significant lessons as a part of our MBA.

Puneet Randhawa, Ex- Maruti Suzuki|| Supply Chain & Operations || Indian School of Business

David has an extremely engaging, open and interactive teaching style. His insights into modern leadership are well grounded in current research with insight into global practice from the West and China. These are distilled down to key concepts and examples that have really changed how I view my approach to managing work and leadership.

Duncan Young, Associate Director, Academic Alliances; Scientific Partnering & Alliances at AstraZeneca

I worked with David for two years on his four Executive Education programmes. Together we created marketing material to promote the programmes to ensure the maximum number of delegates attended. I had the pleasure to witness Davids teaching on many occasions and his leadership knowledge is outstanding. He has an incredible ability to engage an audience and challenge their thinking. A Professor of the highest calibre that any individual or company requiring advanced leadership skills should employ. A very nice man as well!

Nigel Dawson, Business Development Manager – Cambridge Judge Business School

I had the pleasure of being taught the New Leadership Programme (2017/18) at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School by Prof. David De Cremer. David’s method of delivery and enthusiastic approach added an extra dimension to his course. It was not one of those typical “death by power point” lectures. The mixture of guest speakers, videos, psychological in-depth personal analyses that David had carefully constructed into the course was clear to see and this is what separates my experience on David’s course to any other corporate education programmes I have experienced. David’s genuine passion and exemplary knowledge of his subject field shone throughout the programme. David was able to personally relate many of his research based theories with personal examples from his international experiences having worked closely with international CEO’s around the globe from world leading organisations (i.e. Novartis, Huawei, KPMG, etc.). David was able to bring all these individual assets and combine them into a well orchestrated 9 day programme delivered over the course of a year such that the knowledge was able to be retained from one course to the next, due to complimentary nature of the information and David’s delivery methods. My experience with David is one I will remember for a very long time and the learning from which has benefited me in my organisational and personal life. I would recommend David very highly, he is an absolute credit to the University and his employers.

Navdeep Singh Kahlon, Project Manager - Decarbonising Energy

I attended two of David’s courses at CEIBS – Organizational Behaviour, and, Responsible Leadership & Governance. His methods of teaching are unconventional and highly effective. The most important thing about his lectures and about him is that he makes sure you leave his class with a lot of questions, questions that only you can answer for yourself, and if you cannot arrive at an answer, he will explain it to you through similar situations but let you reach your own answer instead of answering it for you. He makes you think, he challenges your existing notions, and he brings out the best in you. Apart from his lectures, his research is thoroughly interesting – nobody untangles the term ‘Leadership’ the way he does. He is one of the finest professors I have come across in my entire educational journey!

Shalin Aggarwal, Global Category Manager, Corporate Purchasing at Henkel

When given the opportunity to choose any leadership training – I chose The New Leadership and professor David De Cremer. The course seemed to fit well with the way I wanted to develop as a leader – whilst also developing my employer.
David’s lectures met all my expectations. He meets all his students with respect and adapts his approach to your talents and needs.
I hope for a new opportunity to attend David’s lectures as I have experienced that it delivers on it’s promises. I grew as a leader, and created new opportunities for both me and my employer

Silje Anine Bell, Acting Director Department for Global Health & Health Intelligence hos Helsedirektoratet