Deans and business leaders set direction on business education for a better world
More than 30 deans and business leaders – members of CEMS, the Global Alliance in Management Education – gathered in Barcelona this week to express their commitment to preparing “responsible leaders for a more open, sustainable and inclusive world. During the CEMS Strategic Board meeting – hosted by ESADE Business & Law School in Barcelona – they defined and approved a new vision and strategic action plan for the coming years. The CEMS Alliance includes more than 30 leading business schools around the world, 73 multinational companies and 7 NGOs, which work together to deliver the CEMS Master in International Management (MIM). Among the deans that attended the meeting were Peter Todd, dean at HEC Paris; Gianmario Verona, rector at Università Luigi Bocconi; Ingmar Björkman, dean at Aalto University School of Economics; Luiz Artur Brito, dean at Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo-FGV; and Gregory Whitwell, dean of the University of Sydney Business School and CEMS Deputy Chair. Also in attendance were top executives from companies like Care International, L’Oréal, Beiersdorf and A.T. Kearney.
Eugenia Bieto, Chair of the CEMS Global Alliance and Director General of ESADE Business & Law School, observed that “business schools don’t want to educate the best leaders of the world; they want to educate the best leaders for the world. That means, according to Prof. Bieto, that the real drivers that inspire business schools’ purpose should be “ethics, integrity and a commitment to constructing a fairer society.
At the same meeting, deans and business leaders also discussed geopolitics and the future challenges of a global world. Professor Javier Solana, President of ESADEgeo and former NATO Secretary General, was the keynote speaker of the session. Prof. Solana advised the attendees about climate change risks: “We only have one earth where we can live. There isn’t a plan B. We only have a plan A.
Attending the meeting were representatives from CEMS Corporate Partners such as ABB, Beiersdorf, A.T. Kearney and L’Oréal, as well as CEMS Social Partner CARE International. “The presence of partner companies and social representatives is essential in order to ensure that the strategic decisions we make today will have a positive impact on the future business leaders of tomorrow, said CEMS Executive Director Roland Siegers.
The CEMS Strategic Board is leading the overall reflection by the CEMS Global Alliance around the Master in International Management programme. This meeting follows the Academic Director meeting, the Faculty Group meeting and the first ever Communities of Curriculum Practice meetings at the University of Economics, Prague in April. All three meetings were very forward-looking, with discussions of the CEMS Vision Action Plan with directors and work on the topic of creating value through disruption in education with directors and faculty. The CEMS Programme Managers, Corporate Relations Managers and Corporate Partners will be meeting to learn from each other through a series of meetings at Bocconi University in Milan, 12th-16th June.
About the Strategic Board Meeting
The CEMS Strategic Board convenes once per year and includes rectors and deans from the 30 CEMS academic member schools and senior representatives of CEMS corporate and social partners, as well as the CEMS Chair and Executive Director. It defines the vision and strategic action plan of CEMS and gives perspectives on categories of activities where CEMS can add value for its members.
