IESE: Where Small Global Classes & Case Studies Are A Beautiful Thing

Byrne: And how do you feel about rankings?

Heukamp: The people who do rankings suggest more or less that everything is comparable. I tell them, ‘look, it’s like saying everybody understands an Italian restaurant and a French restaurant. They are both restaurants, but you expect very different things from them. Yes, food, but very different things. We are not as well known as we’d like to be, but probably would not be at that level even, if it hadn’t been for some of the rankings that have transported our name. We were very early on quite successful in the Financial Time’s ranking. It generally treats us quite well. So I am not saying that we are victims or anything like that, but what I do think is that there is a problem.

If you talk to candidates who come walking through your door, you realize that they read rankings in a way that I think can mislead them, and that has to do with the difference between Italian, Japanese, or French cuisine. Where it’s much clearer is that there’s a 4-star Italian restaurant and there’s a 4-star Japanese restaurant. But how can you compare, for example, a one-year to a two-year MBA school? The two-year program is clearly doing very different things for you. I’m not saying one is better than the other, it’s simply different, but depending on what you want to do with the MBA, it may be a very bad idea to go to one or the other depending on goals.

Our MBA program puts a focus on purpose and meaning. And I think we’re very outspoken about this. We give you the tools that you need to know as a young, bright person coming out of an MBA. We give you an international experience, but even that doesn’t fully set us apart. I think it’s quite unique in another way. How you should think about the purpose of your work, the purpose of business and the fact that you need to be really serving, in the end, the people that you work with or for. I think that sets us apart.

We live in a time of change, and change, if not handled correctly, can lead to conflict. And so, therefore, I think what’s happening today in politics is sort of a reflection of what’s happening in many people’s lives, in their relation to what they work for. It requires a lot of very good leadership skills to somehow balance the different legitimate needs that people have and find the right way through it. I typically like to say that we’re a school in the Christian tradition, which I think makes some of it easier to see, in the sense of evaluating one person’s service orientation.

Byrne: Do you personally pay a lot of attention to rankings?

Heukamp: I guess it’s part of my job. I would be lying to say that I’m not. We all know that this is not the reason why people come to your program, but that’s definitely how you become part of a short list, so, therefore, it’s relevant, John: Oh yes, of course, that’s right.

Byrne: And I hate to ask you this question, but I have to. What happens after you have your new building, another executive MBA program, the master of management, and your hire 25 new faculty?

Heukamp: We have more ideas, more projects. There are more executive education programs we can launch in the Madrid market. I think the market size there would suggest that is a big area for growth. And then we do have advanced management programs, also we have one here in Barcelona, and the New York campus and I think that are only really in the beginning of the stages of where they should be.

Byrne: Would you do anything else in the United States, in terms of programming?

Heukamp: Yes, yes. We already use the campus today for our full-time MBA, and they have a bunch of modules there, but I think we can do more, I think it could be an attractive place for our MBA students to spend more time. And then there is the market for some executive education programs in New York That also, again, is really just the beginning of what I think we could be doing.

Byrne: What about online education?

Heukamp: Right now we are preparing short focus executive education programs that will be fully online. They will be coming out starting this April. The first one is going to be on the digital mindset and the second will be on data analytics. We have three in the pipeline. There will be another two coming after those. And then we’ll see how this goes. We think they would be three-day programs online over a six or seven-week time span. It’s limited with the audience. We’re limiting it to about maybe 75 people.

So it’s not going to online as in massive, open. It’s going to be high touch, with a reduced number of participants. And it’s also not cheap, because the price point will be about €1,800, which is a little cheaper than the residential version.

I think that online is a valid alternative channel to reach people and that there are people that you would not be working with otherwise. We think of ourselves as a social institution that, if resources allow, should help as many people as possible in business education. Sometimes, from an educational standpoint, we get tucked down in a debate about what’s better, online versus residential, and I think that’s the wrong debate because there are people who don’t have that alternative. I think everybody would enjoy being on campus for two years in a full-time program. But not everybody can. We have invested quite a lot in technology and know-how, and we do a good part of that for our custom executive education clients. It’s also in the global executive MBA. We do know how to do it.

Byrne: There’s a lot of talk in the industry about the decline in applications for full-time MBA programs. Is this something that you are worried about or concerned, or not really?

Heukamp: As an industry, there has been a reduction in applications over the past five years. But we’ve grown against the industry trend because we have increased our intake to 350. And in the process, the applications have increased actually proportionately more, which made us think we are on the right track. If you grow your program and have the right student quality, you become more attractive for companies to come and recruit, and that in turn also attracts more and better candidates. But there is some worry about the overall picture, even though I’m then rather optimistic about our program specifically.

I think it’s true that depending on what kind of MBA you do that the economic equation may not work out for you as well. In other words, it’s the rational thing to do, to say, “I will only do an MBA if I can do it at a top school.” I think that’s the rational thing to do. And given the cost of education in general, specifically in the U.S., which again is the biggest part of the market, it’s not surprising that people think this way. One of the big issues actually is the whole educational loan and debt situation students have in the U.S., mainly coming from undergraduate, not so much from business school. But that obviously impacts what they can do and want they want to do later.

Byrne: Do you like being Dean?

Heukamp: Well, it’s a very challenging job, and I think it will stay challenging all the time. This I can sort of sense.

Byrne: Your predecessor was in this job for 15 years. Do you think you’re going to be dean for that long?

Heukamp: I hope not (laughing).

DON’T MISS: MEET IESE BUSINESS SCHOOL’S CLASS OF 2020