Celebrating Bold Innovation In Business Education: Poets&Quants Best In Class Awards For 2024

IE Business School in Madrid

IE Business School in Madrid

Best In Class: IE Business School for Sustainability

Poets&Quants Best in Class AwardsAlong with artificial intelligence, the other hot button issue in business education is sustainability. Concerned about the impact of climate change on our world, a new generation of students has demanded that schools address the issue of sustainability. Five years into a sustainability  initiative, IE University has become a  world leader on the issue. The school takes both a broad and deep approach to sustainability, incorporating environmental, social and governance issues in defining sustainable practices. IE boasts 254 performance indicators that range from  energy consumption to the number of women in an educational program. IE even tracks the salary gap between women and men and, perhaps not surprisingly, measure the sustainability content in just about every course taught at the university.

Isabela del Alcázar, the global head of sustainability at IE, has impressive results. Last year, IE University was recognized as one of the first carbon neutral universities in Europe. It reduced its scope 1 and 2 CO2 equivalent emissions by 50% through a mix of larger institutional initiatives and the combined efforts of 1,300 employees and more than 8,000 students. Things like remotely shutting down computers at 10 p.m., training people to turn off machines and equipment when not in use, switching servers to the cloud, and only buying Amazon Web Services which uses 100% renewable energy. The university has also reduced its use of paper consumption by a remarkable 98%. Some 35% of the faculty is now involved in teaching and researching courses or sessions on sustainability, a vast improvement from the three profs who were in the area five years ago.

Her efforts have won praise from the Financial Times annual global MBA rankings. In 2023, when the British newspaper first ranked schools on carbon footprint, IE was in second place. This year, IE ranked third best in the world. The school has done even better on ESG, ranking first in the FT in the last two years.

To Alcázar,  sustainability is about adapting to change and remaining relevant. “ESG is a framework to understand what are your dependencies and your vulnerabilities and to transform them into understanding who you are and how you relate to society and the environment.”

Her devotion to both the cause and the university is a natural outgrowth of her upbringing and a personal desire to have impact on a world her three children will inherit. Her father, Diego del Alcázar y Silvela, founded IE Business School with a group of entrepreneurs in 1973. Her brother, Diego del Alcázar Benjumea, is the CEO of the university. With a PhD in molecular biology and a Master’s in biotechnology management, she brings to the job experience as an entrepreneur who can seamlessly blend science with high-level management skills.

That has made the difference in very positive ways.

Best In Class: Carey Business School for the Business of Health

As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.3 percent.Historically, at least, health care has attracted few MBA graduates from top business schools. But with health care accounting for 17.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, this is an industry ripe for major disruption. Given its massive size, reaching $4.5 trillion in annual spending, and its importance, the business of health will likely rival technology as a major employer of MBAs in years to come.

Even so, few business schools have as enviable position in the business of health as Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School. By leveraging the university’s strengths in the health care sector, Carey has become a leading choice for young professionals who want to pursue a career in health (see our free downloadable guide on the business of health).

In this wide-ranging interview with Poets&Quants Founder John A. Byrne, Dean Alexander Triantis, explains how the business school is marshaling the formidable resources of the university to make Carey the leading player in a sector that accounts for 20% of the U.S. economy’s GDP and the fourth most popular career choice MBAs after consulting, finance, and tech. Since becoming dean in 2019, Triantis has doubled down on the business of health, making the topic a strategic priority and a point of differentiation for the school.

“We start off with Johns Hopkins University, a name synonymous with health,” he explains. “We are in an incredible ecosystem. We have a great School of Medicine, School of Nursing and a School of Public Health. But it goes beyond that, with  the School of Engineering that has a great biomedical engineering department. We have Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures which is the commercialization part of the university that focuses on all innovations but in particular health So all of the pieces are there. Carey, as a young school, has harnessed the power of that ecosystem.”

A redesigned full-time MBA program now offers a health, technology and innovation track, with a 12-week paid internship that taps into the Johns Hopkins network to secure opportunities for students to find solutions for health care management and delivery. There’s a Health Care Management, Innovation, and Technology specialization as well In Carey’s Flexible MBA program. The school also offers a specialized master’s degree in healthcare management that is available to both full- and part-time students. And there are dual-degree options in which students can earn an MBA while also gaining an advanced degree in medicine, nursing, public health, or engineering.

Regardless of the program, the school’s approach is to focus on the role that innovation and technology play in disrupting the healthcare system. “If you are interested in pharma, medical devices, learning about all the types of insurance structures and the economics of healthcare, we have something for you,” says Triantis.

That focus has put Carey at the forefront of the next big thing.

Best In Class: Ross School of Business School for Experiential Learning

Poets&Quants best in class awardsExperiential learning is the rage these days in business schools. Just about every MBA curriculum has at least one project assignment with a real company. Teams of students study and analyze the challenge, propose solutions and then present to a group of company managers and executives.

But there is one school that is the pioneer in active learning. It’s the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

When MAP (which stands for Multi-Discinplinary Action Projects) was introduced at Ross 32 years ago, the course pioneered the concept of action-based learning and sparked other universities and business schools to try their hand at it as well. But over the years, MAP has grown into a powerhouse of incredible student experiences, unforgettable learning opportunities, and unmatched outcomes for our business partners.

It also has been a major reason why many applicants apply and enroll in Ross’ MBA program. ”

“When I was deciding between business schools, one thing that stood out to me about Michigan Ross was its commitment to action-based learning,” says Adam Brewster, a current MBA student. “I was a career switcher, and I wanted a chance to get my hands dirty before I was sent off into the real world as a newly-minted MBA.”

MAP is a capstone course in the first year of the full-time MBA program at Ross. During the second half of winter semester, students are put on teams of four to six to tackle a real business problem. For seven weeks, they’re working with this team – learning how to navigate challenges and solve ambiguous problems.

What makes MAP unusual is that Ross just doesn’t tack this on to its curriculum. It literally stops the academic calendar for it. MBAs work on these challenges full-time. Projects range from helping a startup company develop a licensing strategy for a proprietary technology to helping Microsoft assess artificial intelligence opportunities to helping a Korean company author a sustainability accounting plan. Some projects took people to Europe or India to help companies develop market entry plans. Others took people across the United States to advise companies on marketing strategies, film industry strategy plans, and healthcare device market assessment plans.

“If you’re a career switcher you can tackle a project that might be similar to your internship,” adds Brewster. “For those who aren’t sure if a particular industry is something they’re passionate about, this is an opportunity to get a high-level taste of something new. MAP can also be a chance to get some international experience or test the waters on an industry you’re interested in pivoting to further along in your career.”