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SKEMA Global DBA welcomes its Class of 2026 for a five-day orientation week in Paris
SKEMA Business School’s Grand Paris campus in Suresnes welcomed the Global DBA Class of 2026 in late July for a five-day on-site orientation week. The new cohort brings together senior executives from mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, and the Middle East, working in sectors including financial payments, logistics and supply chain, new media, B2B, consumer brands and software.
The Orientation Week was built around three progressive themes: academic grounding, methodological empowerment, and practical immersion. Christian Linder and Wenyu Dou, DBA co-directors, welcomed the cohort and opened the week with a joint session, “Introduction to Your Doctoral Learning Journey,” setting out the distinctive value of the SKEMA DBA: applied research anchored in real business contexts, an equal and mutually enriching faculty–participant relationship, a cross-cluster research system that breaks down disciplinary boundaries, and full-cycle academic support from topic selection to the defence. Participants then observed a live DBA thesis defence by Fabien Pacory, of the Global DBA Class of 2023.
From management experience to research contribution
Four faculty workshops guided participants from professional experience towards a viable doctoral research journey. Professor Paul Gardiner presented “Managing the DBA Journey” and the DBA Journey Canvas, a nine-module planning tool built on the principle that “a DBA cannot be fully planned, but it can be thoughtfully governed.” Professor Xuefei Lu led “Turning Organizational Challenges into Research Contributions,” introducing the twin tests of puzzle and generalisation. Professor Ziguang Chen addressed topic selection and the transition from an interesting question to an actionable research model, while Christian Linder’s “Foundation of Academic Research” and Wenyu Dou’s “DBA Research: A Primer” framed theory building and the LDI approach to topic definition.
Corporate immersion
Two site visits connected method to practice. The cohort visited the intelligent warehousing and logistics centre of a technology-driven Chinese e-commerce company in Paris, and the headquarters of Keolis, a global public transport operator active in 14 countries with close to 70,000 employees and more than three billion passenger journeys a year, where Head of Knowledge Management Francisco Teissier introduced the group’s lean, people-centered knowledge management model.
Isabelle Jauny, Head of SKEMA Transitions, also presented the School’s five-year strategy for responsible and sustainable transition, structured around three pillars: Diversity, Decarbonization and Digital for Good.
The SKEMA Global DBA is designed for experienced executives seeking to transform years of business insight into rigorous, original applied research. By the end of the week, the 2026 cohort left Paris with preliminary research ideas of their own and a clear direction for their doctoral journey.
