Your course covers partner management and negotiation. What connects them?

“Many managers overlook how much company performance depends on relationships outside their organization. Partnerships and negotiated deals drive strategic success. This course links them by design. Students learn why partnerships matter, how to structure them, and how to negotiate effectively.”

Why focus on partner management for MBA students?

“The course starts with a simple idea: a company’s strengths extend beyond its legal boundaries. Partners are part of the core strategy.

The course then explores key tensions all managers face: balancing client value delivery with margin protection, and long-term planning against urgent demands. These tensions vary by industry and business model. Students analyze real cases that reflect this variety.

We draw on frameworks from operations, supply chain, and procurement management. These tools enable students to analyze real partnerships and propose new ones that address key challenges: building competitive edges, driving innovation, ensuring sustainability, and boosting resilience.

For example, students have examined cases like Apple/Foxconn, Tesla/Panasonic, Nespresso/Rainforest Alliance, and Hermès/MycoWorks. These examples cover diverse industries, power imbalances, and strategic goals.”

How do students learn these skills?

“A key part is connecting concepts with students’ own professional experience and with real business partnerships. Students analyze collaborations between companies. In groups, they explore why those partnerships were created, how value is shared, and what challenges arise in managing them.

They also reflect on their own professional contexts, whether they come from consulting, industry, or entrepreneurship, and think about how partnerships shape strategy in their organizations. This combination of real cases and personal reflection helps students develop a much deeper understanding of how collaboration works in practice.”

Why is negotiation critical for MBA students and leaders?

“Negotiation is a fundamental skill because it appears in almost every leadership role. Whether in sales, procurement, entrepreneurship, consulting, or executive management, leaders must align stakeholders with different priorities.

Negotiation is not just about closing deals. It is about creating value, managing relationships, and making strategic decisions under uncertainty. That is why developing negotiation capabilities is so important for MBA students: it equips them with a skill that will be relevant throughout their careers.”

How do students develop negotiation skills, and how does AI help?

“Simulations form the core of the learning experience. Students negotiate against each other. With professionals from more than ten countries in the cohort, every simulation becomes a cross-cultural negotiation in practice. That’s intentional, not accidental. Even pairs from the same country bring diverse professional cultures, communication styles, and risk tolerances to the table. Learning to read and adapt to those differences is central to the training.

What sets this approach apart is a diagnostic framework I created specifically for the course, based on negotiation science research. It breaks down negotiators’ actions into three phases: preparation, the negotiation itself, and follow-through.

Unlike a simple strengths assessment, it pinpoints behaviors that quietly erode value: habits that hurt outcomes or raise the risk of no deal. Each student gains a clear view of their personal weak spots. This feeds into a tailored development plan, ensuring learning continues beyond the course.

AI enhances this by delivering personalized feedback for every simulation. It reviews students’ preparation and—when available—negotiation transcripts. This builds on class debriefs, maximizing insights from each exercise.”

What do you hope GEM MBA students take away?

“Not just technical skills, but genuine self-awareness. Understanding how you show up in high-stakes conversations is what makes a real difference throughout a career. And that is what the GEM MBA is designed to deliver.”

Courses like Prof. Anger’s are a reflection of what sets the GEM MBA apart: a rigorous, experience-driven curriculum that prepares students not just for their next role, but for a lifetime of leadership.