Former IE Business Dean Moves To Hult

Martin Boehm joins Hult International Business School as an executive vice president and global dean of its undergraduate programs.

Martin Boehm, who spent nearly 16 years at IE Business School rising to dean for five years from 2017 to 2021, has joined Hult International Business School as executive vice president and global dean of undergraduate programs. Since departing IE in Madrid, Boehm served as Rector at EBS University in Germany.

A former chair of the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), the German-born Boehm is a charismatic and articulate ambassador for business education. His hiring by Hult signals a new commitment by the school to expand its undergraduate presence.
“Dean Boehm will work with the entire Hult community to maintain the strength and relevance of Hult’s BBA degree and look to grow the UG program for the future,” according to a statement from Hult on the appointment. Hult currently boasts 5,000 students on four campuses in Boston, San Francisco, London, and Dubai,

“I’m thrilled to join Hult and look forward to contributing to its continued success,” said Boehm. “In today’s world, it’s not enough for business schools to rely on traditional ways of teaching. We must prepare students in new ways – teaching them foundational tools as well as the mindsets for continuous learning as business and industry move rapidly into the future. It’s an exciting time and I believe Hult is poised to lead students, and the industry, into the future.”

BOEHM WILL FOCUS ON GROWTH AND BRAND AWARENESS FOR HULT

Hult’s undergraduate program offers students the opportunity to study in either Boston or London and then rotate to another home campus once each year or stay at one home campus for the entire program. Hult also offers summer rotations in San Francisco and Dubai. The program offers students specializations in finance, marketing, business analytics, management, entrepreneurship, design, and even psychology.

In an interview with Poets&Quants, Boehm, 46, says he will largely be focused on increasing student enrollment and building the school’s reputation. “Hult has a hunger for growth and when I look at that from the outside there are a couple of dimensions to accomplish that,” says Boehm. “Number one, we just have to sell our programs more and better. As far as I can see, we have amazing and interesting programs. The second is the international one. Right now Hult offers programs in multiple locations. What is missing is an Asian location. Something in Asia would be quite interesting, not only to provide a more global educational experience but it also would make Hult more attractive for that market.”

Boehm, who will move from Frankfurt to London for the job, also expects to invest more heavily in brand awareness for the school. “In marketing, we always talk about brand awareness and brand reputation, Hult has done an incredible job in the last few years in making itself a name. Philip Hult (son of founder Bertil Hult) wants to build a legacy of being one of the top educational institutions in the world.”

HULT SIMILAR TO IE BUSINESS SCHOOL

He believes that Hult is similar to IE where he has spent most of his academic career. “Culture-wise, it is super similar to IE. The governance structure, the kind of faculty we hire, with more of a fluid faculty between full-time, adjunct, and research. It is more applied as opposed to Ivory Tower academic research. It seems to me from the outside very similar to IE. I think they are super alike and there are probably not as many institutions around the world that would fit culture-wide. On the international dimensions, it is a completely different ball game. From both the staff and the faculty, Hult is a global institution.” 

Boehm thinks it is also possible for Hult to move into new markets inside and outside of business. “We did experiments in law, politics, and economics at EBA. So that was one way. We could move a little outside of the standard track and leverage the expertise of our faculty to a slightly different market. It is going to be interesting to get to know the faculty better. Within the business school world offering something that has an entrepreneurship focus could do super well. Or you could envision something like computer science and analytics just outside the business school world.”

At EAB University in Germany. Boehm took over an institution that was running a deficit. “The key objective was to essentially try to turn around the institution and that involved the 3 Ls: innovation. image, and internationalization,” he says. “When I joined EBS, we lost money. Now we are in good shape. It’s not that we are generating tons of profit but we are financially stable and have built a platform for growth.”

REPOSITIONING EAB UNIVERSITY

“We started off by repositioning the entire institution, including a focus on developing the leaders of tomorrow and a complete rebranding of the university. We redid the entire master’s portfolio and became the first in the market to allow students to go through an accelerated version of the master’s in one year instead of two years. On the business school side, we completed AACSB accreditation and participated in the Financial Times rankings, and scored pretty well. Our Master’s in Finance was Top 25 in the world for the first time ever. We are in the Top 50 for the other programs. It is a decent result for the first or second time in the rankings. That allowed us to put the business school back in the game.

“The law school also went through accreditations. About 20% to 25% typically pass the state exam that all legal students take to practice law.. We pushed getting closer to 70% from 60%. And the law school launched the first English-speaking program and branched out to launch a new law politics and economics program for the international market. We also tried to push collaborations with other schools and expand our partnerships.”

Yet, he missed the broader business education market. “At the same time,” he acknowledges, “I realized my interest was in the business school.”

Now at Hult, Boehm will return to a singular focus on business education.

DON’T MISS: Back To The Future: How & Why Hult Revamped Its Undergraduate Business Degree or Innovation: A Global Online MBA That Leverages Content From Wharton & Kellogg, Google & Goldman Sachs