FEATURE INTERVIEW
What do you see as the biggest
challenges facing business
schools today?
What are your main
priorities for the 2018/2019
academic year?
What Hult research are
you particularly excited about?
Since 2016 we have implemented
a research strategy that focuses on two
of the biggest challenges facing most
organizations and world leaders;
transforming behavior and creating
disruption. The former is about change
and leadership issues on individual, group,
and organizational levels. The latter is
about change in strategy, companies,
and entire industries. While we honor
and appreciate traditional academic
research, our natural bias is towards
practical, or applied, research that helps
managers do a better job. Remember our
vision: To be the most relevant business
school in the world. We want our research
to have immediate practical impact.
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Ensure that we make the right decisions
and take the necessary actions to retain
our triple accreditation. This means useful
academic policies and great systems have
to be in place, as well as continually
focusing on high quality delivery in
everything we do. Helpful feedback from
all accreditors serves as a guiding light.
Help build our reputation as a legitimate
but innovative business school operating
at the fringe of our industry. We need to
tell the world who we are, what we do,
and how we help move the industry
forward. I do exactly that at any relevant
conferences and business meetings
I attend.
Help embed the notion of lifelong
learning into Hult’s DNA. Everybody
talks about it, but few have done anything
exciting. We already offer alumni the
opportunity to take an elective each
summer, but we can do so much more
to move ourselves towards becoming
relational rather than transitional. Stephen
is driving this transformation and as CAO
I help make it happen. This is especially
important for alumni, as we hope to make
Hult the business school where lifelong
learning really makes sense and is easy
to access.
Business schools have faced both
a credibility and a legitimacy challenge
since the various corporate and financial
scandals that have hit since the millennium
shift. A century ago successful business
people started business schools to help
professionalize practicing managers. After
heavy criticism in the 1950s, most business
schools changed direction and they fell
into line with other science-based schools
in universities. The result was less practice,
more theories, and research being
prioritized. Teaching excellence no longer
shared center stage, which led to business
schools evolving into isolated bastions of
irrelevant theories with a focus on teaching
abstract knowledge. Despite much
research, few were able to predict the
financial crisis. At that time, Hult’s
dedication to teaching excellence,
leadership skills, and research with impact
was seen as being at the aft in the industry.
However, today the pendulum has swung
back towards impact, engagement, and
relevance, meaning Hult is now at the
forefront! Other business schools must
embrace the movement back towards
providing intellectually sound but practical
education rather than just offering
theoretical tuition. Of course, this is easier
said than done; complicated governance
structures and bureaucracy make change
a real leadership challenge. Hult can
always do more and be better. We must
strive to remain relevant as a truly
appreciated member of society and the
Hult Prize serves as a fantastic example.
I think tapping into the vast wealth of
executive education knowledge at our Hult
Ashridge campus will be hugely important
for us as a school going forward.