Deans From Around The World Offer 2024 New Year’s Resolutions

Andrew Karolyi, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

My resolution for 2024 is to work harder for even greater collaboration among business schools for positive societal change in the world.

Business schools matter more today than ever before. About one in four undergraduate students at universities around the world study business; hundreds of thousands enroll in business programs at the graduate level, including MBAs. In addition, pre-experience professional master’s level training is a dramatically growing segment of the market.

The expectations and challenges facing business leaders, and therefore business schools and their students as future leaders, are escalating with significant new challenges, from deglobalization pressures to disrupted global supply chains, from heightened geopolitical tensions to shifting workplace dynamics in the aftermath of the pandemic. And then there is the uncertainty with the rise of new (GenAI) technologies. In understanding their impact and rising responsibilities, business schools realize there is a need now for more collaboration than ever before to help navigate the new uncertainty, volatility, and complexity. No one school can have the answers; there is much greater power in the collective.

Organizations like the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, European Foundation for Management Development, and Global Business School Network help business schools not only with peer accreditation oversight to ensure learning goals, but they are vital forums for social learning among business school leaders.

Global consortia, like CEMS with its 33 member schools, including our Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, are doing ever more together in exec education offerings, sharing new business venture platforms, as well as student and faculty exchanges among its members. There are course offerings popping up on new topics involving professors across schools and for students that span those schools – all for knowledge sharing of best practices. All such initiatives are welcome; more are needed.

The Cornell SC Johnson College of Business is a large, comprehensive, purpose-driven, globally relevant business school that has an affirmative obligation from its mission to help lead and be part of such collaborations. As its academic leader, I resolve to do even more in 2024.

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Francois Ortalo-Magné, London Business School

When I became Dean in 2017, London Business School was clear on its ambition to have a profound impact on the way the world does business. Through the actions we have taken over the years, including the research of our faculty and the global reach of our learning experiences, we have demonstrated a broader purpose: not just to impact the way the world does business, but also the way business impacts the world. This “impact squared” speaks to the fundamental role of businesses in our lives and the future of our planet, and to the responsibility incumbent upon business school graduates. Instilling this responsibility in our students and alumni during their time with us and along their life-long learning journey is a perennial resolution, and one which lies at the heart of all that we do as a school.

As Dean of LBS, I am committed to amplifying our impact and impact squared.

I am committed to making business education accessible for those bright, curious and humble individuals who may never have dreamed that a world-class business education was within reach, and to support our alumni as they strive to amplify their impact.

Scholarships open doors, which is why we have resolved to double our scholarship offering through our five-year Forever Forward Campaign. Just one year into the campaign, I am delighted that we have secured half our campaign scholarship target, already helping us attract outstanding talent from around the world and achieving our highest ever proportion of women in our 2023 autumn intake.

Our partnership with the U.S. organization Management Leadership for Tomorrow – the first European business school to partner with MLT – is part of that resolve. MLT shares our desire to equip and embolden high-achieving individuals from underrepresented communities – in this case Black, Latino, and Native American – to realize their full potential, make a mark, and make a difference.

Content, connections, and conversations amplify the impact of our students and alumni. I am committed to providing them with all these benefits along their learning journey post-graduation wherever they are in the world. Our early campaign success in support of innovation is accelerating our progress for the benefit of our alumni.

In 2024, I look forward to joining forces with our students, alumni and wider LBS community to ensure faster progress with impact squared!

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Mary Margaret Frank, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to demonstrate the important role business plays in our society. In collaboration with the UNC Kenan-Flagler community, I am excited about showcasing the opportunities that understanding business creates for all of us – in our work, our lives, our communities and across the globe. And in a world where technology continually allows us to be more self-focused, I also resolve to show thanks to those who chose the “we” over the “me.”

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Martijn Cremers, Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business

My resolution for 2024 can be simply stated: focus and investment. As we continue to enact the College’s five-year strategic plan launched last summer, a key objective is to elevate the Notre Dame MBA program by remaining distinctively mission-centric and market-relevant and by investing in student programming and career support, facilities and fellowships.

As part of our strategy to invest in the Notre Dame MBA program, we recently made the decision to sunset our One-Year MBA program at the end of the 2023-24 academic year to focus on our Two-Year MBA. We are directing all of the staff and financial resources previously dedicated to the One-Year MBA toward the Two-Year MBA, particularly in support of developing opportunities for experiential learning, leadership development and career services.

We’ve made great strides in these areas, such as focusing the MBA curriculum to provide pathways that align with core career interests and investing significantly in experiential learning, including the opportunity for our MBA students to study for seven weeks in Silicon Valley or Santiago, Chile.

In 2024, we will expand opportunities for students to broaden their business experience and develop a global worldview. A key initiative includes providing all MBA students with the chance to act as consultants on live projects with companies spanning the United States and beyond, fostering a truly global perspective.

We also will continue to develop and deepen our Notre Dame approach to leadership development called Tender, Strong and True – words taken from the University alma mater. Our emphasis is on developing a growth mindset focused on empathy, courage and authenticity as they relate to people, performance and purpose.

We remain committed to an in-person program format, both for the Two-Year MBA and our new Global Executive MBA. Earning a degree from Notre Dame is a transformative experience. We place a high value on providing a learning environment where people feel welcome and included, with opportunities for exploration of faith and moral purpose, and development as a person and a leader holistically linked to one’s career aspirations. Interactions between students, faculty, staff and alumni in the classrooms, hallways, breakout rooms, social events and, of course, tailgates around football games are essential. Joining Notre Dame means joining a lifelong community.

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Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou, Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business

As we embrace a new year, my resolution is to lead our business school to the forefront of AI for business. Our faculty and students will leverage generative AI, in particular, to empower businesses and champion social responsibility for the betterment of society. In 2024, our mission is clear: forge a better world while equipping our students with the AI skills to transform the future of business.

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Stephen Spinelli, Babson College 

2023 was a banner year for Babson College and entrepreneurship education. Babson was named the 10th best college in the United States by The Wall Street Journal and retained our place atop U.S. News & World Report’s entrepreneurship rankings for the 27th and 30th consecutive time at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Babson’s success, and generous support from donors and alumni, signals that the world is recognizing and validating the power of entrepreneurial leadership.

In 2024, Babson College will continue to fulfill our mission and advance our strategy to empower entrepreneurial leaders who create, grow, and steward sustainable economic and social value. As our world faces innumerous challenges and continuing social divide, entrepreneurial leaders can play a distinct role in bridging gaps and impacting communities around the world.

We resolve to further the teachings of entrepreneurial leadership and encourage people to recognize that anyone can be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial leaders think beyond what it takes to start a business, these individuals are building valuable relationships, promoting innovative thinking, and remaining open to new ideas. While this thought process is crucial in the business world, it has endless promise to impact how we lead and treat one another, too.

We recently eclipsed the $500 million mark of our most ambitious fundraising campaign aimed at equipping Babson with a competitive advantage in our second century by providing key investments in student scholarships, faculty support, transformational campus improvements, and an enhanced endowment. These investments in Babson’s mission and strategy has transformed our campus and promises to impact the way we educate the entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow for decades to come.

With the support of our donors and alumni and the validation of our place as a leader across higher education, Babson College resolves to advance entrepreneurial leadership and harness the untold potential it has to bring people together, no matter our differences. We will encourage communities around the world to see the challenges facing society as opportunities to unite for a better tomorrow. Whether that manifests in new ways of approaching sustainability or championing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, or it leads to new and innovative technologies and applications of artificial intelligence that solve big and small problems, the world will benefit from an influx in entrepreneurial leaders.

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Susan Christoffersen, Toronto Rotman School of Management

We need leaders who can innovate and navigate a world that is rapidly changing while remaining true to their purpose and values. My resolution for 2024 is to amplify this message and to ensure Rotman plays a key role in shaping the future of management education. We need to continuously evolve and refine our curriculum to reflect complex macroeconomic risks – climate, technology, and social – that demand new research and approaches. The rapid pace of technological change is not only going to increase the need for people to understand the role of AI, blockchain, and social media, but is going to elevate the importance of our human skills to strategize, to empathize, and to engage with kindness, compassion and respect.

Here’s to a prosperous 2024 – one that will come from intentional investment in new ideas, new innovations, and new talent.

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Otgontsetseg “Otgo” Erhemjamts, University of San Francisco School of Management

Developing Antifragile Future Leaders

We are living through a time of historic challenge and opportunity. The world is facing ongoing economic, social, and geopolitical volatility. At the same time, we have entered a new age of AI that will fundamentally transform productivity for every individual, organization, and industry. This new world requires from us an ability to embrace change and navigate volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

At the University of San Francisco School of Management, we resolve to develop compassionate, adaptable, resilient, and antifragile future leaders, by combining the Jesuit values of cura personalis, magis, and being people for others with a forward-looking business curriculum that equips our students with the skills necessary to tackle societal grand challenges such as climate change and income inequality. As we continue to encourage and scaffold our students to embrace change, take risks, learn from failure, and challenge the status quo, we resolve to do the same ourselves.

As a start, in May of 2023, we restructured our school from a faculty-centric organization to a student-centric one where faculty are solely focused on curriculum, innovation, student experience, and student success, and not on administrative tasks. We eliminated discipline-based academic departments to reduce silos, to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and to accelerate curricular innovation. We are striving to become an agile organization where walls and lines are less important, and quick changes, flexible resources, and innovative actions are more important. To make this vision a reality, we resolve to put aside our differences, and leverage our collective gifts, talents, and capabilities to build a better future for all of our stakeholders.

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Francisco Veloso, INSEAD

INSEAD: Laying the foundations of the next chapter of the Business School for the World

INSEAD has transformed over the past ten years to strengthen its impact on business and society. My New Year’s resolution is to build on these strengths to lay the foundations for the future. The convergence of impact, sustainability and innovation resonates deeply with me as an academic specializing in high tech innovation.

Throughout history, I believe that humanity has tackled and surmounted major challenges by leveraging innovation. 

In 2024, INSEAD is set to confront this significant challenge: how can companies incorporate environmental, social, and financial considerations into their decision-making process? The school will complete an overhaul to its curriculum that embeds social and environmental issues and how they impact business decisions into every aspect of the program’s core —formally making sustainability a part of its DNA by ingraining its principles into all 14 core courses and the Capstone project. Many students around the world understand the importance of this challenge and see that INSEAD is making this important commitment.

INSEAD is also at the forefront of innovation with the launch of the INSEAD XR portal. The platform hosts the world’s most extensive collection of learning experiences using virtual reality technology, coupled with a comprehensive solution to bring these immersive learning experiences to classrooms worldwide.

INSEAD XR marks a significant leap forward in educational technology. It offers a scalable, cost-effective, and user-friendly XR-based solution that elevates the impact of learning by making it more engaging and memorable. We are leading the field of learning and research, making management education more impactful. In fact, this initiative has recently won the Strategic Management Society Educational Impact Award 2023.

In 2024, I look forward to leading INSEAD so that, together with our amazing community, we continue to fulfil our mission of bringing together people, cultures and ideas to develop responsible leaders who transform business and society. Through the world class education they receive at our school, I want to equip more and more leaders and organisations with the knowledge and tools to address the climate crisis, I want our school to steadily grow so that we can continue to make a positive impact on business and society, I want to engage with and empower our diverse and global community, and I want to continually evolve the learning experience for our students and participants.

INSEAD embarks upon the new year full of hope for the future. Our locations span the world and we will continue to invest in our vibrant learning environments and the regional and global impact of all of the INSEAD community.