Exit Interview: ‘We Don’t Know What Jobs Will Exist’ — Tepper Dean On AI, MBA Resilience, & Leaving The School Strong

As Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou prepares to step down from the Tepper School of Business on June 30, after 11 years as Carnegie Mellon’s B-school dean, she is already shifting her focus away from institutional strategy and toward something more personal – and, in her view, more urgent.

The move will close out a 17-year run as a business school dean, including six years leading the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University before arriving at Tepper in 2015.

After more than a decade in the role, Bajeux-Besnainou plans to return to her roots as a finance professor, with a focus on financial literacy and retirement systems. She wants to study how different countries structure retirement planning – and why so many Americans are left to navigate it alone.

“We’ve basically asked individuals to be hedge fund managers themselves when they don’t understand much,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking… how many people you see working in grocery stores, in airports, and clearly they shouldn’t be working.”

That perspective offers a revealing lens on her time at Tepper – a deanship defined less by sweeping reinvention than by a steady push toward making business education more applied, more flexible, and more connected to real-world outcomes.

A MORE EXPERIENTIAL TEPPER

If there is a single throughline to Bajeux-Besnainou’s tenure, it is this: more doing, less abstraction.

“We have a skyrocketing number of capstone projects,” she says. “Experiential learning has been a big thing.”

Under her leadership, Tepper expanded hands-on learning across programs, pairing classroom work with real-world applications. That includes a growing number of international experiences, where students do not just travel – they work.

This year, students completed projects in Japan, Portugal, Thailand, and Argentina, often partnering with local companies while abroad.

“To me, international experiences are really big for students,” she says. “We’re trying to build these new experiences… and at the same time, students work on capstone projects for local companies.”

That emphasis extends into the classroom, where Tepper has leaned into what it calls “collaborative AI” – using artificial intelligence to simulate real-world decision-making environments.

AI AS A TOOL – NOT A CRUTCH

Bajeux-Besnainou was early in encouraging faculty to experiment with generative AI tools, even incorporating them into coursework and exams. Two years in, her view is more measured.

“It’s still a work in progress,” she says. “It changes every day.”

At Tepper, AI now appears in three ways: as a subject, as an application, and as an ethical framework.

“We teach the ethics of AI, which I feel is an incredibly important topic,” she says. “We need the framework to think about it.”

The bigger concern is whether AI weakens critical thinking. Her response has been to design against that risk.

“One of the biggest threats is that it can limit critical thinking,” she says. “Our application is doing just the opposite. We’re leveraging AI to enhance critical thinking.”

That balance is not settled. Students will rely on AI in their careers. The challenge is making sure they understand when to trust it – and when not to.

“We want to make sure that humans are always in the driver’s seat.”

A BET ON DIVERSIFICATION

If AI reshaped the classroom, diversification reshaped the school.

One of Bajeux-Besnainou’s most consequential decisions was to expand Tepper beyond its traditional MBA and PhD core.

“I strongly believe in diversification,” she says. “Having a more diversified portfolio of programs is better to hedge the risk.”

That meant launching new specialized master’s degrees, including an in-person MS in Business Analytics and a Master of Science in Management designed as a pathway into the MBA. It also meant expanding flexible formats, including a one-year accelerated MBA track and a growing online program.

“For the online program and for the full-time program, we have the same curriculum,” she says. “We don’t have a second-class citizen type of curriculum.”

The strategy reflects a broader shift in the market. While top MBA programs remain stable, demand is fragmenting across formats and career goals.

“You see other schools just getting rid of their full-time MBA program because it’s not sustainable,” she says.

THE SLOW CLOCK OF BUSINESS EDUCATION

The deeper challenge, she argues, is structural.

“The pivoting of industry is faster than the pivoting of business schools,” she says. “We’re slower.”

New programs take years to design, launch, and build credibility. Employers, meanwhile, can shift hiring needs in a fraction of that time.

That mismatch has shaped Tepper’s approach.

“That broader portfolio of programs is incredibly important,” she says. “Because that allows us to pivot faster when needed.”

Still, she does not see the MBA disappearing.

“As long as consulting firms, technology firms, Wall Street hire MBAs, MBAs will be there.”

LEAVING TEPPER IN ‘VERY GOOD SHAPE’

Bajeux-Besnainou’s assessment of her tenure is understated but clear.

“I think… leaving the school in a really good shape,” she says. “I definitely have done that.”

The data supports the claim.

Tepper’s full-time MBA remains firmly in the top tier, ranking No. 16 in the most recent U.S. News list, while its strength in analytics-driven disciplines continues to stand out. The school ranks at or near the top in information systems and business analytics – areas closely aligned with its positioning at the intersection of technology and management.

That strength extends beyond the flagship degree. Tepper’s online MBA ranks among the best in the world, reinforcing a strategy centered on flexibility without dilution.

Poets&Quants coverage over the past five years has tracked that steady evolution – from the expansion of specialized master’s programs to the growth of analytics-focused offerings and the school’s push into AI-driven, interdisciplinary learning.

What once looked like a strategic bet now looks more like insulation.

LEADING BY LISTENING

Over more than a decade in leadership, Bajeux-Besnainou says her biggest change has been learning to hold back.

“You need to build consensus all the time,” she says. “You need to say nothing for now. Just listen.”

At Tepper, that approach took shape in a highly collaborative leadership model, including a weekly executive committee that brings together senior leaders across the school.

Universities are not easy environments to manage. They are filled with “very bright people… with strong opinions,” she says.

But that complexity can be a strength.

“You accomplish a lot by listening,” she says. “I’m learning so much from others.”

WHAT COMES NEXT – FOR TEPPER & FOR BAJEUX-BESNAINOU

As she prepares to hand off the role, Bajeux-Besnainou is focused on continuity as much as change.

Tepper’s identity, she says, is rooted in management science and deeply connected to Carnegie Mellon University’s broader strengths in technology and interdisciplinary research.

“AI was invented at CMU,” she says, noting that Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell, both at CMU, were early pioneers of artificial intelligence in the 1950s and 1960s. “What’s really important is to leverage the rest of the university.”

That includes a deliberately interdisciplinary model – no academic departments, shared faculty spaces, and programs that span multiple colleges.

“No problem can be solved from one discipline only,” she says.

DON’T MISS THE P&Q INTERVIEW: CARNEGIE MELLON TEPPER DEAN ISABELLE BAJEUX-BESNAINOU ON AI

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.