Poets&Quants’ MBA Program Of The Year For 2023: INSEAD

THE NEW CURRICULUM: A WORK IN PROGRESS

Talk to Francisco Veloso or Urs Peyer or any member of INSEAD’s leadership or faculty and they’ll all agree: There is an endless amount of work to be done. Sustainability is about the pursuit of greater good, and the forces arrayed against that pursuit — sometimes outside human control, sometimes not — are strong and constant.

INSEAD is poised to be a difference-maker, and that gives Francisco Veloso confidence — and hope. “INSEAD is in a wonderful development trajectory,” he says.

As the first year of its sustainability curriculum unfolds, he adds, there will be adjustments, course corrections, even reverses. Key to maintaining INSEAD’s positive trajectory will be the students — the ones who have to carry what they learn into the world and use it.

“We’ve just made a very significant change to the curriculum of the MBA around our commitment to sustainability. It’s the first year, and so therefore it’s going to be quite important that we take feedback from the students: How is it going? How does it make a difference? What are the things that you really felt were really valuable and you want to perhaps expand? What are the things that you perhaps thought were not as meaningful? And then one has to think about how to build on that.

“It’s very important that students have voices in the sense that we all assess, we all get feedback from the students at every level. That does not mean that it’s the students that are deciding the curriculum, but it is very important to involve them in the process, especially because the nature of the INSEAD curriculum is that it’s very case-oriented, experiential-driven. So it’s very important to see how that is impacting the learning process of the students and see what adjustments may be needed.

“I’m an innovation scholar. And so I know, when you innovate, there is the initial innovation and then there are the tweaks that you do on the back of that to really optimize. And that’s something that we will be doing. So in that sense we need to engage with our students and say, ‘Okay, how is it going? How is it making a difference? What are the things that you are learning that are valuable feedback for our process?’”

A CALL TO ARMS

INSEAD is a leader in incorporating sustainability into business decisions at every level. But it can’t — and doesn’t want to — do it alone.

“My hope,” Urs Peyer says, “is that it doesn’t set INSEAD students apart because we are the only ones doing it. I hope that, very quickly, other top schools see the benefits of integrating sustainability into their curriculum.”

Some top schools have: Stanford Graduate School of Business, UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business, Georgetown McDonough School of Business, and others have made significant investments in sustainability in the past three years.

Peyer hopes to see more.

“Smaller, specialized programs are needed to provide deep understanding of the different topics within sustainability, like environmental science or social science, for example,” he says. “But someone at the top needs to have the overview, and needs to be able to integrate all these things, and that’s how the top school should aspire to train their students.”

EYES ON THE FUTURE

Francisco Veloso sees 2024 as a year of momentous change — not only because of INSEAD’s new curriculum but because world events will show the need for it, and the wisdom of the B-school’s approach.

“For us in particular, because it’s the first year that we’re going to have this curriculum, it’s going to be very, very important because it’s a very significant commitment and a very significant investment,” he says. “But it’s not just about us, it’s about COP, it’s about all the things that are happening around. And therefore, in general, it’s going to be another year where there are going to be important developments in general in business education, and I think in particular for us.

“It’s also going to be a year where there’s going to be a lot of reflection about how all the changes in political landscapes around the world are going to impact some of the dynamics. In 2024 we have U.S. elections, UK elections, changes in the leadership in Singapore, a variety of important changes around the world — potentially big changes. And of course, we train people for business, but business operates in this broader environment, so what’s going to happen around the world in all these constituencies is going to have an impact. It may affect student visas, it may impact job market prospects.

“I think the other aspect that’s going to be interesting to follow in general is the continuing evolution of the MBA. Because we’ve been seeing some signs of pressure over the last few years. That got muddled with Covid, that got muddled with some of the big shocks that we’ve been having in the system: war, inflation, and all that. So some of that hopefully dissipates — but maybe not. And we will be trying to understand what that means for that market into the current and future environments.

“Many students around the world who understand that this is important, they see that INSEAD is making this important commitment, and therefore feel that INSEAD is the right place for them to be doing their MBA,” Dean Veloso says. “Because on top of all the other aspects that our MBA offers, the global dimension, the diversity, the experiential nature, that extra is also going to be part of their decision process.”

DON’T MISS: POETS&QUANTS’ DEAN OF THE YEAR: ANN HARRISON OF UC BERKELEY’S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

 

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