The Women Leading Business School Education

Gender parity is slowly becoming more of a reality in business schools.

Women’s MBA enrollment hit a historic rate of 42%, and five programs have achieved gender parity—according to new research from the Forté Foundation.

Bluesky Thinking recently highlighted 12 influential women in the business sector sharing their journey and how they made their way to the top. 

ISABELLE HUAULT – EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT AND DEAN OF EMLYON BUSINESS SCHOOL

In 2021, Isabelle Huault made history when she became the first woman Dean of leading French business school, at Emylon Business School.

Prior to her tenure at Emylon, Huault held various leadership roles at Université Paris Dauphine – PSL, first as Director of the Doctoral School of Management, then of the mixed research unit, before becoming Vice-President, then President in 2016.

Since becoming dean of Emylon, Huault has launched number of initiatives, spearheading the school’s move to a new campus set for summer 2024, and navigating the school through its shift to new educational and shareholder model.

Huault has also improved gender parity among the B-school with a 60% female split in the school’s executive board with a goal of securing a 45% female faculty by 2025.

Her advice to prospective business students? “Be audacious,” she told P&Q in 2021. “I think it’s paramount in life – and especially in our professional careers. Many women (and I have been no exception for many years) tend to concentrate on doing their job very well – and do not project themselves far enough. Each new opportunity is a challenge – and we must have the confidence to seize it.”

AMY EDMONDSON – NOVARTIS PROFESSOR OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT AT THE HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

Edmondson won the Financial Times’ Business Book of the Year in 2023 for Right Kind of Wrong, which focuses on her research on how to foster workplaces where team members own up to mistakes and improve, known as psychological safety.

Edmondson’s research focuses on the intersection of leadership, organizational learning, and failure. In 2023, she was named as the world’s top business thinkers by Thinkers50. Her most famous work is Fearless Leadership: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Here, she pioneered the concept of psychological safety in the workforce.

“Cheating and covering up are natural by-products of a top-down culture that does not accept “no” or “it can be done” for an answer. But combining this culture with a belief that a brilliant strategy formulated in the past will hold indefinitely into the future becomes a certain recipe for failure.”

LILY BI – PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE AACSB 

Lily Bi only started her career in the B-school space in 2023 and is already having a significant impact as CEO of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Bi started her career as an IT engineer, and after working in IT for 13 years in China, Japan, and Singapore, she decided to reshape herself from a specialized professional to a business executive.

As president and CEO of the AACSB, Bi has created a new mission, vision, and values for AACSB and is leading the development of a new strategic plan focused on increasing member value and elevating the quality of business education around the world.

Earlier this month, Bi shared her thoughts with P&Q on why there is a growing number of women taking up the mantle of business school dean.

“I think that overall, if we look at the number of female students in MBA programs, you don’t see a sudden change in one or two years, you see gradual change in the number of females in higher ed over decades,” she says. “The female deans obviously come from that pool — so when you have more female students going into higher education, then the pool is getting bigger to select female leadership for business school deans.”

Sources: Bluesky Thinking, Fortune

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