Michael Topolnytsky, MBA
Associate, Investment and Risk Management
Michael Topolnytsky helps financial and strategic investors internationally more reliably execute strategy and improve performance in acquisitions, scale-ups and organizational change. He has spent his career helping guide organizations through significant and risky transitions, using project management discipline, change management expertise and targeted learning & development to make change stick. Michael also teaches and conducts research on operational resilience and managing organizational risks.
Michael began his career in strategy and operations consulting in Germany, serving clients in energy, public utilities, package express, financial services, and rail transportation privatizing and adapting to liberalizing European markets. He then joined the Mercer/Oliver Wyman group, acquiring and building consulting firms in leadership and change management and serving as Finance and Operations Manager in Germany, including responsibility for compliance and risk management in his unit. He later managed the scale-up of the Kets de Vries Institute, a global leadership consultancy founded by faculty at INSEAD. Most recently, Michael has been affiliated with AlixPartners in Munich and Spark Leadership in London, delivering organizational change and learning programs for boards and executives in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Next to his consulting practice, Michael has been teaching Leading Change and Innovation at SciencesPo’s Paris School of International Affairs, working on creating resilient and agile organizations in security, public administration and non-profits, while also doing pro bono work with social projects in Ukraine, India and the Middle East. Currently, he is supporting a team at Queens University in Canada with their research in organizational aspects of anti-money laundering and risk management.
Michael earned his MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau and Singapore and BA (Hon) in Political Science from McGill University in Montréal with specializations in international relations and political philosophy and a minor in German Studies. He is a Canadian who recently relocated home to Toronto, his mother tongue is English, he is fluent in French and German, proficient in Ukrainian, and speaks some Czech and Russian. He is a wilderness traveler who enjoys canoeing, mountain sports and cuisines of the world.