Poets&Quants' MBA Program Of The Year: IMD's Reimagining Of The MBA

Omar Toulan, dean of the MBA at IMD and primary architect of its new innovative MBA program

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, IMD STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO INTERN

“The goal is to focus on not only big tech but how government leverages technology to the betterment of society. Singapore has recently been selected as the most competitive economy in the world by the World Competitiveness Center at IMD and as such is a perfect setting to learn about these trends” says Toulan. “It is a great test site for this. And we will do it with a mix of in-classroom and out-of-classroom activities.”

IMD is making several other adjustments as well, adding a new for-credit, eight-week internship option in July and August, devoting more attention to career development, and adding the opportunity to take several electives during August.

In preparation for the launch, Toulan has been working closely with IMD faculty on how to provide the most valuable assessments for students on the ten core skills. One interesting discovery: MBA programs are so chock full of team assignments that Toulan has had to make room for individual assessments that will allow for more useful feedback, often by AI platforms. “We are increasing the number of individual assignments in the program to allow us to do specific individual assessments. What I don’t want is students hiding in the shadows. The first deliverable will be individual and then we will put them in teams. The idea of focusing on individual skills is meant to put them in the best position for September when they come into the job market.”

USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO ASSESS MBAS ON KEY SKILLS

IMD will use AI tools to deliver assessments. “For a couple of the skills–video and PowerPoint presentations–that are more on the visual side, we have AI tools,” explains Toulan. For the rest, the faculty are developing assessments using Microsoft’s copilot, an intelligent AI assistant. “We are re-grading the assignments from last summer based on the skills in a manual way and then passing them through AI technology. Right now, we’re educating it with our own rubric on problem solving and other skills. It is really meant to give feedback on what students can do better and improve upon.”

Every quarter, faculty will meet with students to let them know what they need to improve on each of the ten skills. “If there is a severe issue, we will do this one-on-one,” says Toulan. “If not, we will do it in a team or class.”

For Toulan, a former McKinsey consultant and strategy professor who had spent two decades at McGill University in Canada, implementing the new curriculum has been a fascinating journey. “What I want to do is develop a sustainable system that provides feedback constantly for the students and that is why we need to make sure we educate AI properly,” he says. “We will always review the feedback before we send it out. On the video assessments for storytelling and presentation, I will still do a human evaluation with the AI evaluation. Those two skills are so fundamental that I want to make sure they are really effective.”

‘COULD THIS HAPPEN AT A MORE TRADITIONAL SCHOOL? IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT.

What will not change is IMD’s focus on leadership development, reinforced through a leadership lab, individual coaching, and 20 hours of psychoanalysis. “The goal of introducing these critical ten skills is to support the development of leaders,” says Toulan. “An effective leader is someone who can make difficult decisions.”

IMD will also retain its small class sizes, its diverse student population, and its highly-popular global International Consulting Projects that have been a key pillar for many years.

Toulan believes that because IMD has what he calls “a relatively niche MBA program” it is in a better position to put through the kinds of comprehensive changes that other schools would find more difficult. “It just means you have to be that much more innovative and creative,” he says. “A standard and purely functional MBA you can get from different sources and different price points. We want to be the most innovative program in the market.”

Central to designing and delivering on the new MBA is the support of faculty. “We have among the most collaborative faculty in the world,” asserts Toulan. “Could this happen at a more traditional school? It would be much more difficult. It is not so easy to convince faculty to do new things.”