Executive summary. Tech Mahindra partnered with INSEAD Executive Education to create Velocity, a customised leadership and commercial acceleration programme designed to strengthen strategic client engagement and drive growth in major accounts. Combining AI-enabled diagnostics, immersive learning, former CXO coaching and live deal application, Velocity has developed 156 senior sales leaders across four cohorts and reached more than 800 executives through cascade learning, strengthening sales capability while contributing to strategic account growth and large transformation opportunities.

Key takeaways

• Velocity helps Tech Mahindra’s senior sales leaders shift from technology led selling towards strategic C suite conversations focused on business transformation, value creation and long term growth.
• Participants apply their learning directly to live client opportunities, using diagnostics, coaching and executive education to strengthen deal narratives, value propositions and high stakes client conversations.
• Across four cohorts, Velocity has developed 156 senior sales leaders and reached more than 800 executives, while contributing to a stronger pipeline of large, multi year transformation opportunities and greater visibility of leadership talent.

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At a time when technology transformation is reshaping industries, the ability to engage clients at the highest strategic level has become a critical differentiator. For Tech Mahindra, this meant looking beyond technology-led conversations and equipping senior sales leaders to engage more confidently with CEOs, CFOs and enterprise decision-makers on business value, transformation priorities and long-term growth.

This ambition became the foundation for Velocity, a customised leadership and commercial acceleration journey co-created by Tech Mahindra and INSEAD Executive Education. Recognised with the 2026 EFMD Excellence in Practice Silver Award in the Professional Development category, Velocity demonstrates how executive education can create measurable impact when it is embedded directly into business strategy.

From Sales Capability to Strategic Growth

Tech Mahindra’s objective was clear: to strengthen the organisation’s ability to grow strategic accounts, increase share of wallet and build a stronger pipeline of large transformation deals. The company already had deep technological expertise and trusted client relationships. The next step was to help its sales leaders shift from solution-led selling to enterprise-level value creation.

This required more than a training programme. It required a learning journey that could help leaders change how they prepared, how they diagnosed client priorities, how they framed opportunities and how they engaged stakeholders across the C-suite. The programme was strongly sponsored by Tech Mahindra’s senior leadership and aligned with the company’s commercial priorities. Velocity was not positioned as a standalone intervention, but as part of a broader growth agenda.

A Deeply Customised Partnership

INSEAD was selected following a structured global search and pilot process. The strength of the INSEAD approach lies in its ability to combine academic rigour, practical relevance and deep customisation around Tech Mahindra’s strategic context.

Together, Tech Mahindra and INSEAD designed a journey that brought together diagnostics, immersive learning, coaching and live business application. The programme began with an AI-enabled diagnostic assessment covering 39 competencies across 12 capability areas, giving participants a clear view of their strengths and development priorities, and creating a data-informed foundation for their learning journey.

Participants then joined an immersive five-day module at INSEAD’s Asia Campus in Singapore. The experience focused on the strategic and behavioural capabilities required to lead complex enterprise conversations, including executive presence, value discovery, stakeholder engagement, negotiation and strategic account growth.

A distinctive feature of Velocity was its direct connection to live business opportunities. Participants worked on real client situations and live deals, supported by former CXO coaches who helped them pressure-test their thinking, strengthen their narratives and prepare for high-stakes conversations. This moved the programme beyond theory and created an immediate link between learning and commercial execution.

The journey culminated in a Shark Tank-style finale, where participants presented strategic account opportunities and converted their learning into Industry Playbooks that could be shared more widely across the organisation. In this way, Velocity was designed not only to develop individual leaders, but also to create repeatable learning assets for the broader sales organisation.

Impact Beyond the Classroom

Velocity’s impact was visible across several levels: individual capability, sales behaviour, organisational learning and commercial outcomes. Across four cohorts, 156 senior sales leaders participated in the programme. Through cascade learning, the reach extended to more than 800 sales executives, helping to embed new practices beyond the initial participant group.

The programme also contributed to a shift in how leaders approached client engagement. Participants strengthened their ability to move beyond technical solution discussions and engage in broader enterprise conversations linked to business transformation, value creation and long-term strategic priorities. They became more disciplined in discovery, more confident in executive-level engagement and more structured in shaping large-deal narratives.

The commercial impact was significant. Over the programme period, Tech Mahindra secured a strong pipeline of large, multi-year transformation opportunities, including several high-value deals across strategic accounts. Velocity participants played an important role in shaping the deal narratives, strengthening value propositions and refining client engagement approaches that helped advance these opportunities.

At the organisational level, Velocity also created greater transparency around sales leadership capability and helped strengthen succession visibility. The AI-enabled diagnostics, combined with faculty insight, coaching and leadership observation, gave Tech Mahindra a clearer view of talent depth and development needs across a critical population of commercial leaders.

What Made Velocity Work?

Several factors contributed to Velocity’s success. First, the programme was anchored in a real business need. It was not designed around generic leadership development objectives, but around Tech Mahindra’s specific ambition to grow strategic accounts and strengthen enterprise-level client engagement.

Second, the learning was applied to live business challenges. Participants did not simply discuss concepts; they used the programme to work on real client opportunities, refine deal narratives and prepare for conversations with senior stakeholders.

Third, the use of diagnostics helped make development more precise. By assessing participants across multiple competencies, the programme created a personalised view of capability, giving both participants and the organisation a stronger basis for targeted development.

Fourth, the involvement of former CXO coaches added an important layer of realism. These coaches brought the perspective of senior decision-makers, helping participants understand how C-suite stakeholders assess value, risk and strategic relevance.

Finally, senior leadership sponsorship ensured that the programme remained connected to business priorities. The involvement of Tech Mahindra’s leadership helped signal that Velocity was not an isolated learning initiative, but a strategic investment in growth capability.

A Model for Strategic Executive Education

The INSEAD-Tech Mahindra Velocity partnership offers a broader lesson for organisations investing in leadership and capability development:

Learning creates the greatest value when it operates inside the business, not alongside it.

In many organisations, executive education is still primarily measured through participation, satisfaction and immediate feedback. These indicators remain useful, but they do not tell the full story. Velocity shows that learning can also be linked to behavioural change, organisational capability and commercial outcomes when the design is sufficiently connected to strategic priorities.

For learning providers, the case highlights the importance of co-creation. INSEAD’s role was not simply to deliver content, but to work with Tech Mahindra to understand the business context, design a relevant journey and create the conditions for learning to be applied in practice.

For corporate leaders, the case reinforces the importance of sponsorship and accountability. Capability development becomes more powerful when senior leaders treat it as part of the business agenda and not as a separate HR activity.

Turning Capability into Impact

Velocity began with a strategic question: how could Tech Mahindra equip its sales leaders to engage more effectively in enterprise-level transformation conversations and accelerate growth in major accounts?

The answer was a learning journey that combined data, insight, practice and business application. By integrating AI-enabled diagnostics, immersive learning, live-deal coaching and leadership sponsorship, Velocity helped turn commercial capability development into a measurable growth engine.

Its recognition by EFMD celebrates not only the strength of the INSEAD-Tech Mahindra partnership, but also the evolving role of executive education itself. When learning is designed with the business and for the business, it can do more than develop leaders. It can help organisations change how they compete, how they create value, and how they grow.