For IÉSEG dean Caroline Roussel, fine-tuning curricula and accommodating changing needs is a process of continuous adaptation and balance. Here, she tells Tim Banerjee Dhoul about the school’s responsibility towards social mobility and its emphasis on enabling students to explore their full potential Getting the balance right E ach year, IÉSEG dean Caroline Roussel offers her insights and advice to female faculty members who are taking on managerial responsibilities as part of training co-ordinated by a French higher education membership organisation. “We have quite informal discussions about my career
Costs & social inclusion Dean since 2022, Roussel’s purview on inclusion is by no means limited to gender equality alone, as she explains: “When I took the deanship three years ago, my colleagues and I agreed that we should do more around social diversity.” Due to its size and status as a member of the prestigious and selective grandes écoles group of institutions, IÉSEG would appear well placed to exert an important impact in this regard. Established a little over 60 years ago, the school has more than 8,000 students across its campuses in Lille and Paris. “I think that we have the responsibility to welcome students from disadvantaged backgrounds,” Roussel declares. A principal and prohibitive challenge is the cost of business education, as the IÉSEG dean concedes freely before outlining the all-important context. “We should consider why business schools are expensive; it’s because the learning experience has a cost. After all, you want to welcome students with nice premises, offer cutting-edge equipment and technology and provide world-class professors – each of these aspects has an impact.” This is why the school runs several schemes to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds and why, crucially, these begin at secondary school. “We have noticed that many young people do not apply because they feel that business school is expensive, that it’s only for rich people and that, therefore, it will be difficult for them to integrate,” Roussel reveals.
trajectory, but they also have personal questions, such as ‘How do you manage your professional and personal obligations?’ I’m the mother of four children, so we discuss how I have combined this with taking on more responsibilities, alongside plenty of other topics,” Roussel shares. “I’m also quite often asked to participate in company conferences and share my experiences,” she adds, referencing a recent example of appearing at an event for the professional services giant EY and its initiative aimed at supporting female leaders. How does Roussel feel about the current state of gender equality in business education? On the one hand, she says she hasn’t felt any constraints, as a woman, during her own career. On the other hand, she is fully aware that the same is not true for many of her peers and of the work required to level the playing field for female leaders in the industry. “In France, there are 39 grandes écoles business school members of the Conférence des Grandes Écoles and only seven out of these 39 are led by women, so the data speaks for itself,” she remarks succinctly.
12 Business Impact • ISSUE 3 • 2025
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