The P&Q Interview: Stephen Bach On A Decade of Leading King’s B-School

It’s rare that the first stop on a business school visit is the roof – but in the case of King’s Business School, that’s where we head. It’s not just any roof. The eighth floor of Bush House offers a prime view of central London, one of the world’s leading business centers, bright under the summer sun.

KBS executive dean Stephen Bach ticks off the nearby landmarks: the vast colonnades of Somerset House just to the right, the River Thames, off in the distance, the London Eye. And the closest building, sheathed in white plastic with a crane on top.

This is King’s newest big renovation project, its South West Wing. Once complete, it will house an agora for learning exchange, a new student center, interdisciplinary academic space for more than 200 staff and flexible work and study areas. It’s a sizable project – and also a symbol of the expansion that has taken place in Bach’s nine-year tenure.

CRANFIELD MERGER TO MARK NEXT ERA

“We’ve grown very rapidly and have quickly established ourselves as one of the leading business schools in Europe,” he says. Since he took the helm as its inaugural dean, the school has increased from an initial 1,950 students to the current 3,357.

Bach is keen to ensure that growth doesn’t come at the expense of interconnectedness. “We don’t have any of ‘this person can’t talk to that person,’” he says.

Its next phase will prove a test to its coherence. Next summer, KBS will merge with Cranfield University’s business school. In the early stages of planning, Bach is upbeat and “delighted to take on Cranfield and their transformational MBA.”

He insists KBS – and Cranfield – will continue to do what they do best.

“The zeitgeist of business schools has long been globalization, but we are now in an era in which that idea is being challenged. Our job is to bring people together and break down barriers.”

Below is the full interview with Stephen Bach as he enters his tenth year as dean, the latest of our interviews with UK business school heads.

How did King’s Business School come about?

The new vice chancellor, Ed Byrne, who had come from Monash University, kept asking why King’s did not have a business school. At the time I was head of the School of Management. I asked, why do we need another business school in London? And I thought we could do something really distinctive. King’s is one of the largest all service universities in London, with outstanding strengths in medicine, law and many other disciplines. I saw this as a real opportunity to build a really interdisciplinary curriculum.

Second, I thought the school should reflect the changing nature of capitalism. There are questions about shareholder value – a lot more is being asked of business schools today. There’s questions about how ethical business is, and that very much fits with the zeitgeist and what we do at King’s, with its emphasis on service to society and real-world impact.

That third pillar is very much about London. We are in an extraordinary location, close to business and government, and King’s has amazing convening power. We have grown hugely, but throughout that growth, our focus has remained on excellence, particularly in undergraduate education, where we believed we had a significant competitive advantage. You need to maintain and build that culture when you’re growing very rapidly – that’s been the glue across the whole school.

What has the growth at KBS looked like?

In the last eight or nine years we have grown from around 2,000 students to approximately 3,500. We are a highly international school, and I am particularly proud that we have a female majority and that the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership is based within the business school. There is nothing wrong with being a conventional business school, but we wanted to do something different. Our master’s in MedTech Innovation and Entrepreneurship is proof of that, and we work closely with other faculties across the university.

This August will mark nine years since you started as the inaugural dean at KBS. What are you most proud of?

We’ve grown very rapidly and have quickly established ourselves as one of the leading business schools in Europe. We don’t have any of ‘this person can’t talk to that person.’ There is a real sense of excitement, ambition and drive. Financially we are strong, our rankings have improved and we have achieved triple accreditation, but I am most proud of the character of our students and faculty. We have a strong orientation towards policy impact. I sit on the NHS Pay Review Body, one colleague chaired the Migration Advisory Committee and is now chief economist at the treasury, and many colleagues are deeply embedded in industry and government.

What would you have done differently?

One could always want to be more ambitious earlier. At the beginning the school was very small, with around 30 people, and our strengths were concentrated in work, organizations and technology. We did not yet have accounting, finance or marketing, so our first priority was to become a full-service business school. That probably meant we went down some quite traditional railway tracks at first, for example by launching programs such as the MSc in Digital Marketing. That was the right decision, although perhaps we could have introduced more innovative programs earlier. We also had to establish the business school’s reputation within King’s itself, because its success was by no means guaranteed. I remember our launch event in November 2017. The auditorium was completely full, Mark Carney, then Governor of the Bank of England, spoke to students. There was a lot of publicity. From that point onwards I really felt people are with us.

What’s the most exciting thing going on at your school right now?

We’ve identified a small number of knowledge frontiers where we’re standing out. One is the future of work. We are also researching issues such as modern slavery, supply chains and the changing nature of leadership. That is one reason why the proposed merger with Cranfield is so exciting. They have strengths in areas underdeveloped in our business school, such as logistics, supply chains and operations. The zeitgeist of business schools has long been globalization, but we are now in an era in which that idea is being challenged. Our job is to bring people together and break down barriers.

When King’s College Business School was founded, it chose not to offer a traditional full-time two-year MBA. How do you feel about that decision nearly a decade later, given that you’ll soon have an MBA program?

I feel really vindicated by the decision we took, but it is important to understand the reasoning. We wanted to differentiate ourselves and believed we had a tremendous opportunity in undergraduate and specialist master’s education. Our students shape us too, because we have them for three years. At that stage we had only 20 to 30 faculty, and we did not yet have the depth of expertise needed to teach an MBA. Since then, we’ve recruited many people with extensive experience, and the environment has changed. The MBA itself is evolving. I am delighted to take on Cranfield and their transformational MBA. They have enormous expertise and knowledge that we can build on together. So it’s a question of phasing and sequencing at the right time. We made the right decision for that moment.

What steps are currently underway to prepare the business school for the merger?

It is still very early days and we are excited by the opportunity. I have been working closely with my counterpart, dean Lynette Ryals, and we are very aligned in our thinking. Through to the end of the year we will be carrying out due diligence and exploring how the two schools complement one another. We will be looking carefully at our complementarities and strengths and what we want to do together. It’s like a glove fitting a hand. We have major strengths in undergraduate, pre-experience master’s education and research strengths in work futures with strong policy impact, for example, through the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, while Cranfield has an outstanding reputation in executive education, its MBA, research, logistics, supply chains and operations with a very well established alumni community.

Structurally, will the schools change?

Right now I want the focus to be on our academic ambition and on building a shared vision. Questions about structure will follow from that broader vision.

Will students remain based where they are?

The proposed merger will increase the options and enhance the experience for our students as they can blend the advantages of our two campuses. They will benefit from our central London location in which ‘London is our living classroom’ enhancing the student experience by our connections to business, health and the start up ecosystem. The Cranfield site offers opportunities to blend management and engineering capabilities in conjunction with industry immersion to develop the tech-savvy graduates of tomorrow.

Will Cranfield School of Management retain its name?

It is too early to make decisions like that. We want to celebrate Cranfield’s success and amazing history. We already collaborate across King’s with schools such as Law and the Institute of Psychiatry, while Cranfield has exceptional partnerships with business. I see this as a continuation of that collaborative approach.

How will you deal with the apparent identity mismatch between the two schools?

I do not see it as a mismatch. If my top team were all white male of certain age and I said to a head-hunter I’m going to appoint another middle age white male with similar background, people would say, ‘That’s a bit odd, don’t you want to bring in fresh perspectives?’ If everyone does the same thing, you simply become bigger but you’re not doing anything new or exciting. When you have people who view the world a little differently, that’s when you make progress.

Will the merger put pressure on the business school’s finances?

No. King’s Business School is fully integrated into King’s College London, so the unit of analysis has to be King’s College. The university has spent a long time thinking about this and has built strong relationships. King’s is in a very strong position financially.

In 2017 you said companies were recruiting talent earlier than the MBA stage. Is that still true?

We’re in period of huge volatility and disruption, and I don’t think it’s all about AI. There’s the geopolitical disruption of war, disruption to supply chains. Professional services firms did extremely well out of Covid and expanded very strongly – now there’s disruption to their business model and they’re being a bit more cautious about hiring. Some firms may prefer experienced hires, but we have to be very careful not to conflate experience and potential. Entry-level roles are under pressure, but any organization still needs to invest in the future. I’m a bit suspicious of the so-called ‘diamond model’ because businesses still need a pipeline of people developing into mid-career leaders. Graduates bring energy, creativity, innovation and fresh ideas – that’s so valuable.

But we also need to think about the way we adapt, we prepare our graduates. Creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication are becoming even more important in an AI world. At King’s Business School we involve students directly in curriculum development through the KBS20 and our advisory council, sharing admissions and financial information with them.

What are your biggest headaches now?

I don’t know about biggest headache, but we’re all feeling our way forward with AI. AI should be a learning collaborator rather than a crutch. I also worry about the changing labor market and about a world where we’re all in our echo chambers. Universities need to encourage difficult conversations. Through the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership we have hosted discussions on issues such as the manosphere, and we also devote attention to climate change, public services and partnerships with local NHS trusts. I think those things are really, really important – I’m less interested in abstract discussions about the future of the MBA.

Which programs at other schools are you watching?

I find Copenhagen Business School particularly interesting because of the way it operates in the public-private space and its view of the role of business in society. That aligns closely with what we are trying to achieve. We also collaborate with Cornell on the future of work and AI, and with EDHEC on business analytics. We always want to keep learning.

What are your priorities over the next five years?

It’s all about excellence. We want to take our educational provision to the next level by continuing to rethink the curriculum for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. We also want to build much stronger alumni networks, having already launched chapters in India, China and London, while deepening our international partnerships. We will continue strengthening our reputation in the future of work, economic policymaking and health, where many of our more than 160 faculty members are working on policy. Healthcare systems around the world face existential funding challenges, and we want to help organizations collaborate more effectively.

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