Bill Carney

Bill is originally from Harlem, New York. He grew up in Africa, Europe and the U.S.A. He has an MBA from IMD in Switzerland and did his doctoral work at GWU in D.C.

After stints with Chrysler, AT&T and GM in Detroit and London, Bill moved to Switzerland; went solo, and has been in the radio, music, consulting and oil business ever since. Along the way he has built and run recording studios in Africa and Switzerland, garnered a gold record, and has taught (and continues to teach) at some of the world’s leading business schools (IMD; IE; RSM; Hult; BMI; DTU).

His consulting client list has included companies such as Nestle, Volvo, HSBC and a few others.

He currently teaches and monitors start-ups in search of new opportunities, and travels between Boston, Geneva and Rotterdam.

His love for education prompted Bill to return to the U.S.A. to complete his studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. While continuing his studies, he worked first for The Gap as a management trainee, then on the assembly line for Chrysler, then General Motors Corporation as a student intern for the Director of Urban Affairs.

During this period he also worked part-time as a DJ on WJZZ, the local jazz radio station, and was a professional musician (drums) with several groups in Detroit i.e. the Spinners and others.

Shortly after receiving his degree, he was named Planning Manager – Africa for General Motors, and spent the next few years traveling the continent doing market analysis and developing distribution agreements. Subsequent promotions found him responsible for projects in Tunisia, Morocco, Zaire (Congo) and Iran.

Bill was named the first recipient of the General Motors International Fellowship and the company sponsored his MBA at IMI in Geneva Switzerland (now IMD, Lausanne.). He graduated at the top of his class.

Returning to the U.S., he was then named Planning Manager, GM Kenya. This position evolved into a job of Fleet and Government Sales Manager – Africa, based in London, with responsability for sales in over 20 countries.

He subsequently joined Motors Trading Corporation (the GM trading company), as a Director, with emphasis on African counter trade. Bill moved to Switzerland and operated out of Geneva.

Bill joined the faculty of IMD, first as a marketing professor, then also as Director of In-Company programmes. He also developed and ran a public semi-annual seminar, “The International Seminar in Industrial Marketing” for numerous years with Fred Webster of Amos Tuck.

Bill currently is Professor of International Marketing at Instituto de Empresa in Madrid where he has been a member of the faculty since 1984. He has consistently received teaching citations for outstanding performance and has been responsible for several programme innovations. In 2009, he created a class called Massaging the Mind, the result of several years of research in the behavioral sciences. The class has been over-subscribed since its launch and has also been sold to companies internationally.

He is a serial entrepreneur as well as being an advisor to several start-ups.

His voice led him into voice-overs and advertising with prime clients such as Philip Morris and Volvo among others and Bill began writing jingles for some of the world’s leading brands. Bill developed a small state of the art recording studio in Switzerland which subsequently expanded into Laughing Bear Productions. The company opened another production facility in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and has produced European and African hip-hop, R&B and world music as part of its eclectic portfolio.

Bill took a temporary hiatus from the corporate world and decided to change focus. Europe was liberalizing the air-waves, and he joined a start-up radio station in France as a DJ and programmer. As the show grew in the ratings, he was recruited by another start-up station, Couleur 3, part of the Swiss government network of stations. Audits of the ”Dr. Bill Show” confirmed an audience in excess of 2 million on Friday and Saturday nights. He was soon doing public shows and appearances with thousands of people in attendance.

Over the years, Bill has worked for or consulted companies large and small in the U.S.A., Europe, Africa and Asia. He has been an advisor to several national governments, the United Nations, the Red Cross, the Offshore Institute and numerous others. He also serves on the Board of a Geneva based high technology venture capital firm.

He is known as an entertaining, provocative and highly motivational speaker.

Bill now divides his time between Geneva, Madrid and New York.