The P&Q Interview: Mette Morsing, The Interim Dean With Big Plans For Oxford Saïd

When Mette Morsing got the call to head Oxford’s Saïd Business School last September, she could not have been at a less likely place. She was 6,000 miles away – in Brazil on a meditation retreat.

If the call broke her Zen, she didn’t hesitate. “I was asked if serve as interim. There’s only one answer: yes, immediately.”

A business school veteran and then director of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Morsing was an obvious choice at a tumultuous time; its previous head had resigned amid a harassment probe.

“It was in a difficult situation for school, but also, I was shown a lot of trust from beginning,” she says. “It seems like long time ago, but it was just head-on. I was out there talking with people, being on stage. I did a lot of communication and a lot of listening – and I was still decoupling from Smith.”

If she came into the role at breakneck pace, Morsing doesn’t seem like she’s eased off on the accelerator. Sitting in the sunny, tree-lined courtyard at the business school’s center, she gestures excitedly at nearby structures – and rattles off several thoughts on making more use of the space.

From the get-go, it was clear Morsing wasn’t going to wait around for a successor to set a new agenda.

“I decided very early on with the leadership team we need to move on with things. We can’t wait for a so-called ‘permanent dean’ to be in place and no matter what it’ll be a collective – not one-man or one-woman – show,” she notes. “So we’ve made a lot of changes.”

CHANGING WORK CULTURE

Top on the list was changing the working culture. Partly due to the circumstances of her arrival, she concedes, but also for common sense reasons.

“That was one of my high priorities from beginning,” she says. “It’s very important for an institution that’s so diverse…we saw this as being about dignity and respectful working environment.”

Morsing has also been focused on diversifying Saïd’s programs and research projects. One example is the school’s new MSc in AI for Business, a partnership with the Department of Computer Science. Elsewhere, change is underway too: Morsing mentions a potential scale-up of the school’s global leadership master’s, a remote program.

One of her big challenges, she says, is prioritizing which projects she and her team should pursue.

“We have so many exciting ideas,” she says. “It’s very much about doing that in collaboration…right now it’s interesting to look [at] how we do research across not just within Saïd Business School.”

Morsing’s tenure coincides with Saïd’s 30-year anniversary this September. From one MBA cohort in 1996, it now boasts more than 42,000 alumni representing 168 countries. The school has grown a broad portfolio of degrees, including executive education and online programs.

SCALING UP RESEARCH CENTERS

Saïd currently runs 12 research centers and initiatives, with examples such as its Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre, the Oxford-UBS Centre for Applied AI and Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. Most of these function as interdisciplinary hubs, collaborating with other Oxford faculties, schools and departments.

Scaling them is a priority for Morsing – and it’ll require more work in the broader university ecosystem, the gears of which can be slow to turn. She doesn’t seem phased. “It’s very much about understanding how you engage with people.”

Handily, having grown up in Denmark, gotten her doctorate and taught at Copenhagen Business School and later at the Stockholm School of Economics, she knows a thing or two about Scandinavian leadership. The process means initially spending a lot of time in consultations, she acknowledges. “But once you’ve got that, then you can move fast.”

A similar “bottom-up model” defines the business school and its parent institution. “I don’t think it’s for everyone,” she laughs. “But then, you need to appreciate, I survived the UN.”

Before her arrival at Smith, Morsing led the United Nation’s largest initiative on responsible management education, with more than 800 business school and university signatories signed up to advance sustainability in leadership education.

At Saïd too, sustainability is a big thread of Morsing’s work.

SUSTAINABILITY FOCUSED

“We seem to attract students who want to do good business but also because they want to change the world – they know that’s what this school stands for,” she says. “If I compare 10-15 years back, students from countries in the Global South were coming to a school like this and then wanting to go to London, whereas now they want to go back and change their own countries.”

Morsing says she was surprised to see how many of Saïd’s faculty are already researching “climate and nature solutions in the business setting.” A recent hire from Columbia University’s business school is one example. “It turns out his research is all on sustainability. We didn’t look for climate business expertise, but he had that.”

She hints a broader sustainability program may be in the cards for Saïd. “We have research on that, but we haven’t connected the dots yet and made a grand program – and that’s one of the things that’s going to be really exciting.”

She notes that a big project like this won’t be a solo endeavor. Where expertise on sustainability or just about any other area is concerned, Saïd benefits from its position within a hallowed institution full of top researchers. She’s conscious she’ll need to invest more time into it personally, too.

TOP TRAVEL PRIORITIES

“I’ve decided not to travel this year because my presence is needed here,” says Morsing. That’s not to say she’s taking it easy. One week includes a leadership team meeting, numerous one-to-ones, external stakeholder discussions – with donors, the board, in recruiting a new board chair.

But it’s a matter of months before she’ll need to get on the road. “We have 30 alumni hubs and they also need some love,” she says. Top on her itinerary is Southeast Asia, with likely trips to India and the US.

For now though, her commute is brief – and plagued by the usual Oxford difficulties.

Each morning, Morsing competes with dozens of students to tie up her bicycle. After a brief effort to get a special parking space with plaque reading “dean’s bike”, she found the local council to be unimpressed with her status. But she’s accepted her fate with good humor.

“I thought I’d like a little more dignity,” she recalls, laughing. “They said absolutely not.”

Commuter troubles aside, she seems to have taken to the role with zeal. Asked whether she’d consider taking on the role more permanently, she deflects.

“I’ve promised to hang around until new permanent dean is in place, I don’t know when exactly – but there’s a process going,” she says.

Still, it’s hard to imagine Morsing leaving anytime soon.

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