The P&Q Interview: Durham Dean Kieran Fernandes On Why Managers Must Think Like Engineers In The Age Of AI

Kieran Fernandes still thinks like an engineer. Well before becoming executive dean of Durham University Business School in April 2025, Fernandes was designing turbopumps for NASA’s space shuttle program, work that required precision, systems thinking, and an understanding that no component operates in isolation.

In fact, Fernandes believes all managers should be trained more like engineers, taught to understand systems, not just functions.

“Managers operate within a network of interconnected actors,” Fernandes tells Poets&Quants. “Their decisions affect information flows, and those flows influence others. Decision making has to account for that wider context.”

It’s also how Durham is approaching artificial intelligence, sustainability, and global partnerships at a time when student mobility is shifting and political pressures are mounting in the UK and beyond.

One year into his tenure, Fernandes is rethinking what business education should measure. The traditional model—lectures, essays, exams—no longer reflects how decisions are made in the real world. Instead, he is pushing toward a system built around knowledge co-creation, where students work directly with companies on boardroom exercises that assess how they solve problems rather than what they can recall.

Q&A WITH KIERAN FERNANDES

Durham University Business School is one of the UK’s longest-established business schools, celebrating its 60th anniversary throughout 2026. It is triple accredited and highly ranked. It finished at No. 9 globally in the latest Financial Times Online MBA ranking and No. 10 in the UK in the Financial Times European Business School ranking from 2024. It finished 47th in P&Q’s 2025 International MBA ranking – a composite of the most influential MBA rankings on the market.

Students at Durham are part of both the business school and a college, studying their discipline within the school while living and engaging with peers from across the university. Students ultimately graduate from their college, reflecting Durham’s emphasis on an interdisciplinary, community-based education.

Fernandes was a professor at the business school for 12 years before taking on the deanship. He also served as Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor where he oversaw the university’s business engagement, working with major corporate partners that fund research across the institution. In that role, he led a large-scale collaboration with the space sector, coordinating partnerships with companies including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and parts of Blue Origin.

Trained as a mechanical engineer, he completed his first degree in India before moving to the United States, where he specialized in turbomachinery engineering.

His research centers on operations research and the modeling of complex systems, including how human behavior fits into such models. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and served as Vice-Chair of the UK National Commission for UNESCO.

In this Q&A, Fernandes talks about redesigning business education for a more complex world, why AI should be treated as a “lab assistant,” and how business schools can act as agents of change for society as well as industry. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve argued managers should be trained more like engineers. What do you mean by that? 

What I mean is that, in engineering, one of the first things you’re taught—though it has its merits and drawbacks—is to look at one part of a problem at a time, but not in isolation. You’re always trying to understand how that small part connects to other systems. That’s the essence of systems thinking. It’s not about optimizing one small piece and hoping everything else falls into place. In fact, that’s often why things fail—because you optimize one part and ignore how it interacts with the rest. 

When you’re trained as an engineer, particularly a systems engineer, you’re constantly looking at how different components interact. Take turbopumps, for example. You don’t look at them in isolation—they are part of a wider system. That wider system has a specific purpose: to safely take human beings to space and bring them back. So there is a mission, alignment, and constant information exchange between different parts of the system. 

If you apply that thinking to other systems—healthcare, policing, supply chains, energy systems—you see the same principle. If you analyze them in isolation, you create problems. When you take a narrow view, you might think you’re optimizing an outcome. But when you step back and ask why it hasn’t worked, it’s usually because you didn’t take a systems perspective. 

Systems are, by definition, complex. Even after decades of research, we still can’t predict weather patterns with complete accuracy. The physics itself is relatively simple—you need certain conditions for cloud formation and rain—but modeling it is extremely difficult because of the complexity involved. 

So when I say managers should think more like engineers, I mean they should avoid making decisions in isolation. A manager might think, “I need to buy this equipment,” or “I need to change something in my supply chain,” or “This piece of software will solve my problem.” But if you evaluate those decisions without considering the broader system, you can create chaos. 

What I advocate is a systems perspective. Managers operate within a network of interconnected actors. Their decisions affect information flows, and those flows influence others. So decision-making has to account for that wider context. That’s what I mean by encouraging managers to think more like engineers. 

How does that philosophy show up for Durham students—especially in the classroom? What are you doing differently? 

I think, first of all, students are part of an ecosystem at Durham, and they always have been. It doesn’t matter what level they are at—Level 8 would be a PhD student, Level 7 a postgraduate master’s student, Level 6 undergraduate, and Level 5 would be apprenticeships. All of these are part of our ecosystem. 

It would be fair to say that, in the past, students came to a classroom, were taught a module or lecture, completed an assignment, met the learning outcomes, and at the end of that there was typically a job—especially from a strong university. Those days are gone. In fact, they’ve been gone for quite some time, even if it took us a while to fully recognize it. 

Now, our philosophy is centered on a different question: what are we preparing students to do? For most of our students, the goal is to secure high-caliber roles in industry. So we’ve brought the business community into the heart of what we do. 

I’ve designed the business school around three concentric circles. At the center is knowledge co-creation. We work with a number of partners where academics and students engage at different levels. A Level 4 student contributes differently than a Level 8 student, but both are part of the same process and bring value through their engagement. 

One example is our work with Nissan, which has had a major presence in the region for more than 20 years. It plays a significant role in the local economy and supply chain. We’ve built what we call the Nissan Launch Methodology. At a basic level, that might involve guest lectures. At a deeper level, students work on case-based projects with Nissan. Beyond that, they may participate directly in company projects, spending time with managers. At the highest levels, particularly for doctoral students, they are contributing real value to Nissan’s operations and supply chain. 

That’s the core of our model—integrating the business world directly into the student experience. 

The second concentric circle is what I would call new forms of education. This builds on knowledge co-creation and focuses on how we design curriculum and pedagogy for future needs. 

Traditionally, education has been structured around modules, programs, credits, and qualifications. But if you take something like an MBA, the real question is: what does the market expect from an MBA graduate? At the highest level, it’s the ability to make effective decisions in a boardroom setting. 

If that’s the goal, then why are we assessing students based on 5,000-word written submissions? Today, anyone can produce that with the help of AI. Rather than focusing on whether students are using AI or trying to detect it, we ask a different question: how do we design learning so students are evaluated on real decision-making? 

We’ve introduced what we call the boardroom exercise methodology. Students work in small groups that function as companies. Within those groups, students bring complementary skills, just as they would in a real organization. We assign them problems across areas like operations, accounting, economics, and marketing, and ask: how does your company solve this problem?  

Are these teams the same from course to course, or do they change ? 

In an ideal world, I would like them to be consistent across the entire program. But in practice, that’s not always possible. Not all modules are delivered in the same way, and not every student takes the same optional modules. Pathways differ, so team structures have to adapt accordingly. 

Got it. And what about the third circle? 

The third layer of our model is about knowledge transfer. It’s important that both students and staff are able to translate what they do into real impact. That’s at the heart of what a business school should be doing—and, in my view, what every discipline should aim for. 

This is where students become heavily engaged with our research centers and academics. While we have exceptional faculty, not all academics are trained to engage directly with the business world or translate their work into practice. So we create opportunities for that connection. 

We have a large number of students who get involved with our 14 or 15 research centers. It’s not compulsory, since it’s not assessed, but many choose to engage because that’s ultimately what they come to university for—to learn how to translate ideas into meaningful, real-world work. 

We also bring in policymakers and external partners. Some students are particularly interested in the policy dimension. For example, we have a strong partnership with the Competition and Markets Authority, and students interested in competition policy can engage through that work. Others may work with the Federation of Small Businesses, exploring how their research connects to smaller enterprises. 

So there are multiple pathways for students and staff to engage—with research, with industry, and with policy. Across these three concentric circles, the central idea is that we are all part of the same ecosystem. 

This is no longer about students sitting in a classroom while an expert delivers knowledge. Students can access that knowledge elsewhere, often more easily. What matters now is how they engage with it, apply it, and translate it into impact. 

Speaking of AI and its impact on work, do you see it as a net positive or negative for degrees like an MBA? What’s your assessment, even if it’s hard to predict? 

My thinking is quite simple. If you look at some of the greatest scientists, there are many examples where their lab assistants went on to become more well-known than the scientists they worked for. Marie Curie is a good example—she started as a lab assistant and became far more prominent.  

In many ways, AI is a lab assistant. There’s nothing wrong with a lab assistant being smarter than you in certain dimensions. The idea that even the best computer scientist can program faster or more efficiently than tools like ChatGPT or Claude is unrealistic. There’s no reason not to use a lab assistant that can do some things better than you. 

So my view on AI is straightforward. There are many things it does very well, and we should use it as a lab assistant. The key challenge—and what we are teaching students—is twofold. First, where are the ethical boundaries? Students need to understand what is appropriate use. Second, how do you use AI to make yourself more productive? 

If we avoid that conversation, we end up in a situation where students are using AI anyway, and we spend all our time trying to catch them rather than teaching them how to use it properly. 

For example, if someone needs to create a PowerPoint slide, there’s no reason to spend hours drawing diagrams. AI can do that in seconds. Instead, students should focus on directing the tool: specifying what they want, shaping the output, and refining it. 

That’s where the emphasis shifts—to critical thinking, engagement, and understanding ethical boundaries. These are areas where AI is still not particularly strong. You can ask the same question across different systems and get very different answers depending on how you frame it. The key is teaching students how to work with it effectively, not against it. 

How are you engaging with the ethical side of AI? It feels like there’s an arms race in management education, while environmental and broader ethical concerns may be lagging. Is there time to address all of that? 

These are complex and difficult questions, but they are important ones. 

At a very simple level, we try to raise awareness. For example, we have posters around that highlight the environmental cost of using AI—things like the energy required for a single query. The point of those isn’t to stop people from using tools like AI. It’s to make them think about how and when they use them. 

People are now using AI for everything, even basic emails. The question we want them to ask is: do you really need to? Not every email needs to be perfect. Not every sentence needs to be optimized. Sometimes it’s about reflecting on whether the use is necessary. 

Culturally, I think the UK—and Durham in particular—may be in a slightly different place compared to the U.S. on these issues. Across political perspectives, there is broad agreement on things like environmental impact and the need to move toward net zero. That doesn’t mean the questions are resolved, but there is less divergence in the baseline conversation. 

What we emphasize is responsible use. We want students to understand both the capabilities and the limitations of AI. 

A big part of how we teach this is through case-based exercises that explore ethical and cultural differences. One example we use is the concept of “guanxi,” which is a Chinese idea related to building relationships and networks. A simple translation might be nepotism, but that’s not entirely accurate. It’s a legitimate and accepted way of doing business in that context. 

We might present students with a supply chain scenario: you meet a senior manager over dinner, they host you, and a deal is made. In one cultural context, that’s entirely acceptable. In another, it would be frowned upon. 

Then we ask: how does AI interpret this situation? Depending on how you frame the question, you may get very different answers. That’s the point. The technology doesn’t resolve the ethical question—it reflects the assumptions behind how it’s used. 

We’re not trying to tell students that one perspective is right and another is wrong. We’re showing them that these differences exist. As a manager, you may operate across multiple cultural contexts, and you need to understand how to act ethically within those constraints. 

That’s how we approach it—by building awareness, encouraging reflection, and using real-world scenarios to explore ethical complexity, rather than pretending there are simple, universal answers. 

Looking at your first year as Executive Dean, what evolutions or innovations have you been working on? And what are the big initiatives for the next few years? 

One of the biggest shifts—more of an evolution than an outright innovation—is how we’ve restructured our teaching. We’ve broadly segmented it into two parts. 

The first is what we call the Durham experience. This is about maximizing what makes Durham unique. Students come here for many reasons. It’s a beautiful place, as you can see behind me, but it’s also deeply historic. The cathedral dates back to 1072, and parts of the surrounding buildings go back even further. That sense of history and place matters. 

So we’ve designed part of the curriculum to fully immerse students in that experience—the collegiate system, the way students live and engage, formal dinners, traditions, and the broader community. It’s about creating a distinctive, place-based educational experience. 

At the same time, we’ve separated that from a second strand of programming focused on agility, flexibility, and innovation. These programs are designed to push the boundaries of how and where we teach. Rather than trying to replicate the same model everywhere, we’ve taken a different approach. 

Many universities offer what is essentially the same MBA in different locations. We’ve deliberately separated the two approaches—philosophically and methodologically—while maintaining similar learning outcomes. 

This allows us to operate globally in a more meaningful way. We now offer programs in cities like Paris, Lyon, Frankfurt, Milan, and Singapore, and we’re actively engaging in places like Shanghai and Mumbai. These programs are tailored to their local contexts. For example, in Milan, the curriculum is closely linked to companies like Lamborghini and Ducati, reflecting the region’s industrial and cultural identity. 

These programs are designed to be fast, agile, and responsive to local market needs. 

To support this, I’ve created an Education Development Unit. This is a cross-cutting team of pedagogy experts who work across all programs. Their role is to think about what effective teaching looks like in different contexts—what pedagogy means in Durham versus Paris versus Milan—and to support academic colleagues in adapting their approaches accordingly. 

The goal is to maintain a consistent standard while ensuring that each location delivers an authentic and meaningful experience. We don’t want students in Paris to feel like they’re getting a diluted version of Durham—where someone flies in, teaches for a few days, and leaves. If students choose Paris, we want the Durham ethos to be present there in a way that makes sense locally. 

So that separation—between the Durham experience and globally agile, locally embedded programs—is probably the most significant shift we’ve made so far. 

With pronounced changes in international student mobility, including in the UK, how are you being affected, and what are you doing to adapt? 

We are being affected. Generally, the higher ranked a university is, the less affected it tends to be—but across the board, there is still impact. 

One of the ways we are responding is through the model I mentioned earlier—expanding into different regions. By offering programs in multiple locations, we can offset some of the challenges around student mobility. 

We are also developing stronger joint partnerships, particularly in Europe. For example, we have a strong partnership with emlyon business school, where we collaborate on a number of initiatives. Similarly, we’ve built a partnership with Politecnico di Milano in Italy. 

At the same time, we are expanding into what is often called the Global South, starting with countries like India. I’m particularly interested in building similar partnerships in North Africa. It’s a region that is often overlooked in terms of student engagement, but it presents real opportunities—both in terms of access and price point. We are currently in advanced discussions with several countries in that region. 

I see this as part of our responsibility—not to impose how others should teach, but to share best practices and build meaningful collaboration. 

There’s also a historical dimension to this. Durham has long engaged globally. One of our early wardens was involved in founding Freetown in Sierra Leone, and the university has taken these kinds of responsibilities seriously for a long time. 

More recently, we’ve launched a major training program for senior civil servants across Caribbean nations, in partnership with the Turks and Caicos government. That program begins shortly and reflects another way we are engaging globally. 

At the same time, we have to acknowledge that there are factors we can’t control. There is increasing political pressure—both now and likely in the future—around restricting student numbers and visas. I don’t necessarily agree with those positions, but they are part of the public debate, and we have to operate within that environment. 

So our approach is to adapt—through global partnerships, regional delivery, and new program models—while continuing to provide access and maintain quality. 

Anything else you’d like to add? 

One of the key responsibilities of a business school is its ability to influence. In most universities, business schools have a strong voice. With the possible exception of engineering, they are among the closest to the business world, and that proximity creates real opportunities for impact—particularly with policymakers. 

At Durham, we’ve positioned the business school around the idea of “change for good,” and we are pushing that agenda very deliberately. I’ve established a policy hub and invited senior policymakers from across all political parties to serve as policy fellows. The aim isn’t to tell them what to do, but to broaden their perspective—to expose them to ideas and experiences they might not otherwise encounter. 

Within our faculty, we have students from 116 nationalities. That’s a remarkable platform. Even in international settings like UNESCO, where I served on the board for six years, you wouldn’t typically have that level of diversity in one place. We can bring policymakers into direct conversation with that global mix of perspectives. 

We’re doing the same with industry, but also ensuring that students themselves have a voice in those conversations. That connection—between students, business, and policy—is something I think is still underdeveloped across many institutions. 

More broadly, I believe this is an area where all business schools can align. There doesn’t need to be competition here. Business schools can act as genuine agents for change, creating dialogue and driving impact in ways that few other faculties can.  

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