BREAKING: ESCP Dean Léon Laulusa To Step Down This Summer 

Léon Laulusa, the dean who helped usher in a new era of transformation at ESCP Business School in France, will step down this summer to pursue a new professional opportunity.

The announcement comes less than a year after ESCP unveiled its Bold & United strategic plan, a sweeping reorganization that will transform the school into what it calls the European University of Management. Poets&Quants named ESCP our 2025 Business School of the Year partly for this vision.

Laulusa will remain in his role through transition, working with the board and executive committee “to ensure a smooth transition in the best interests of the School, its students, faculty, and staff,” says a school press release.

A QUARTER CENTURY AT ESCP

Laulusa’s departure will close a long chapter at the school. A French chartered accountant, he began his career at Deloitte while also teaching at HEC Paris. ESCP invited him to teach part time in 1999.

He became a permanent lecturer in 2005, earned tenure in 2009, and left Deloitte, where he had been a partner managing accounting, audit, consulting and legal work. The move came with a large pay cut, but Laulusa told P&Q in a 2024 interview that education had become his calling.

“For me, it’s a noble cause, and I wanted a change. It wasn’t about the money,” he said.

His leadership path inside ESCP grew from there. He helped develop the school’s relationship with China and served roles overseeing both academics and international relations. He served as deputy dean, then executive dean, before being appointed dean in June 2023. Nevertheless, he continued to teach a small class at ESCP.

“For me, it’s important because I want to stay connected with the students,” he told P&Q. “I want to share my experience, but also learn from them.”

BUILDING A NEW EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY

Laulusa’s deanship will be closely associated with Bold & United, the strategic plan ESCP released in June 2025.

The plan positions ESCP as a distinctly European alternative in global business education. Laulusa described it to P&Q as a “third way” between the U.S. model of action, efficiency and theory-driven management education and the Chinese model emphasizing harmony and pragmatism.

“In Europe, we prefer to offer a third way. We are inspired by the entrepreneurial drive and outcome focus of the U.S., but also by the relationship intelligence and strategic harmony found in Asia,” Laulusa said. “So this third way combines action and performance from North America with harmony and relationship-building from Asia. We call it ‘harmonious performance,’ bringing together the best of both worlds into a distinctly European model.”

The centerpiece of the plan is the creation of the European University of Management by 2030, with ESCP Business School as its academic heart. Two new schools will join it: the ESCP School of Technology, expected to launch by 2027, and the ESCP School of Governance, expected by 2029.

The School of Technology will focus on what Laulusa calls the ABCDs of emerging technology: AI, blockchain and big data, coding and cybersecurity, and digital tools. It is not intended to be a traditional engineering school. Instead, it will teach technical skills through the lens of management, business and society.

“We’re inspired by MIT, but in reverse,” Laulusa told P&Q. “Instead of a tech school adding management, we’re a management school adding tech.”

The School of Governance will build on ESCP’s recent work in geopolitics, public affairs, diplomacy and defense studies. The school already launched a European Geopolitics Institute and has developed programs tied to international business, diplomacy and strategy.

Bold & United also includes a €320 million investment in ESCP’s campuses, including €150 million for the Paris République site. The plan calls for ESCP to enroll more than 12,000 business students by 2030, along with 1,000 technology students and 300 governance students. It also aims to increase faculty ranks, grow scholarships, expand lifelong learning and strengthen recruitment in the Global South.

FIRST MOVER IN AI, SUSTAINABILITY

In October, Poets&Quants named ESCP its 2025 Business School of the Year, citing the same transformation now underway.

Founded in 1819, ESCP bills itself as the world’s oldest business school. It has six European campuses in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and Warsaw, as well as a branch campus in Dubai. Its multi-campus model does not merely allow students to study across countries. In many programs, it requires them to do so.

Students in the three-year Bachelor in Management spend each year in a different country. Master in Management students choose between two and five campuses. MBA students rotate through a different campus each term. Each European campus is locally recognized in its host country, allowing ESCP to award local degrees. That recognition can also help international students work in those countries after graduation without employer sponsorship.

ESCP has also moved quickly in AI. It was one of the first business schools to develop a proof of concept with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu, with 1,000 students, faculty and staff testing how large language models could support teaching, research and operations. The pilot generated more than 200 campus projects, including AI tutors, negotiation simulations with AI clients and tools to streamline internship agreements. ESCP later distributed more than 10,000 ChatGPT Edu licenses across its six campuses.

Last summer, the school announced a partnership with Hugging Face, the open-source AI platform founded by ESCP alum Clément Delangue. The deal gives students, faculty and staff access to Hugging Face’s Academia Hub.

In sustainability, the school launched Europe’s first sustainability-focused course in 1992 and now has a Sustainability Department with more than 25 professors, two research institutes and an international advisory council.

SEARCH FOR A SUCCESSOR BEGINS

The schools’ Board of Directors, chaired by Philippe Houzé, has launched a search process to identify Laulusa’s successor, according to the press release. The process will be led by the board’s Nominations and Compensation Committee.

Top candidates will be able to build on the school’s current momentum and continue its strategic development, the release says.

That momentum includes a major fundraising push. ESCP’s Foundation launched its first full-fledged campaign this year with a €100 million goal to support Bold & United. When P&Q wrote about the school as Business School of the Year, the campaign had already secured more than €44 million in donations and pledges.

DON’T MISS: WAKING A ‘SLEEPING BEAUTY’: POETS&QUANTS NAMES ESCP OUR 2025 BUSINESS SCHOOL OF THE YEAR AND ESCP’S DEAN ON THE FRENCH B-SCHOOL’S UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION 

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