Peter Lorange Chair in Family Business, IMD.
NUS Outstanding Educator Award, 2021.
Best Seller, Ivey Publishing, 2020-21 for bKash: Financial Technology Innovation for Emerging Markets Case Study.
Marleen specialises in the strategic challenges facing emerging market enterprises – in particular the strategy and governance of Asian family businesses. She studies how family business groups innovate, professionalise, internationalise, and transform, and how they can implement a governance mechanism that is fit for purpose for family and business. She also researches emerging market state-owned enterprises and how they interact with their governments. Her scholarship on Asian family business groups spans books, chapters, and articles in leading journals including the Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Family Business Strategy.
Based in Singapore, Marleen holds the Peter Lorange Chair in Family Business at IMD’s Global Family Business Center. Previously, she was an associate professor at NUS Business School in Singapore and an assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Marleen is a co-founder of the family business group at the Singapore Institute of Directors and a co-founder of Tycoon Trails, which provides corporate team training on family firms through an innovative Singapore street game. Marleen is frequently cited by international media including The Economist, Financial Times, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
‘CDL saga casts spotlight on succession and why family businesses struggle with it’ (The Straits Times, 2025); ‘Generational Wealth: Embracing lotus model for family business succession’ (The Edge Malaysia, 2025); ‘Governance and complexity in family firms’ (chapter, The Routledge Companion to Asian Family Business, 2021). De Gruyter Handbook of Business Families (De Gruyter, 2023); Chinese Indonesians and Regime Change (Brill Academic Pub., 2010); The Rhythm of Strategy: A Corporate Biography of the Salim Group of Indonesia (Amsterdam University Press, 2007).
“Marleen’s research provides deep insights into how family enterprises navigate complexity, scale strategically, and sustain long-term governance in rapidly evolving markets.”
– Thinkers50
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Thinkers50 Limited
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Wargrave RG10 8PZ
United Kingdom
Thinkers50 Limited
The Studio
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Wargrave RG10 8PZ
United Kingdom
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