AMBA & BGA LATIN AMERICA CONFERENCE 2024
T he compelling case study presented by INCAE president Enrique Bolaños on leading a business school in turbulent times began by taking a look at the history of the institution. In 1972, an earthquake destroyed the Nicaraguan capital of Managua and Bolaños recalled that faculty members were convinced the institute was finished as its cash flow was “already very vulnerable”. From this tragedy, however, INCAE’s first think tank emerged, the Advisory Centre, dedicated to collaborating with the government in the reconstruction of the capital city. This was INCAE’s first public policy institute and the predecessor to its current Latin American Centre for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development (CLACDS). The Sandinistas (a Marxist movement) took control of the country in July 1979; a full civil war erupted, major cities were destroyed and tens of thousands of civilians died. The takeover led to a serious deterioration of INCAE’s finances and a set of internal conflicts that threatened to bring the institute to its knees. In 1982, INCAE established a campus in Costa Rica and two years later Ecuador became the seventh member country of the Incaísta network. By the end of the decade the school had emerged stronger, with its main campus in Costa Rica and a feeder in Nicaragua. During the 1990s, the institute expanded its impact in the region through an alliance with Swiss philanthropist Stephan Schmidheiny to create the centre known as CLACDS. Fast forward 20 years and in April 2018 a social uprising in Nicaragua threatened to destabilise the country; by June of that year INCAE was forced to move its MBA students to Costa Rica due to security reasons. In March 2020 the pandemic hit, resulting in the school having to close its campus; INCAE accelerated its alliance with provider Emeritus and went fully digital. It began to offer its first-ever online programme and nowadays the portfolio is mainly hybrid, noted the INCAE president. In September 2023, chaos ensued when the Nicaraguan government issued a decree eliminating INCAE’s legal status in the country; the campus was confiscated and its bank accounts seized. A meeting with the authorities in Panama took place last December and the school was given permission to operate there. Support from the local community was also forthcoming and a plan to open an executive education centre at Costa del Este Business Park was mooted. In April 2024 INCAE’s first executive MBA in Panama was inaugurated and construction began on the centre. “Throughout all these years, being in an unstable region socially and politically speaking, we have faced multiple challenges that have made us stronger and given us resilience, as well as the tools to innovate and transform them into opportunities”, remarked Bolaños.
Ambition | DECEMBER 2024 | 17
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