AMBA & BGA GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2026
help students feel engaged and part of a community. “How can we help our students feel like they belong?” she asked. She illustrated the point through two alumni invited back to speak at their alma mater. The first had completed their degree with little connection to campus life beyond compulsory lectures and administrative emails. Years later, the invitation felt less like a homecoming than a cold solicitation; without a sense of belonging during their studies, their relationship with the institution had ended at graduation. The second alumnus had been integrated into the university ecosystem from day one, connected to peers, academic support and campus events through accessible, real-time channels. Asked to return, they were keen to mentor students, speak at events and contribute as an active alumnus. “Alumni loyalty is not created at graduation – it is built day by day, touchpoint by touchpoint, throughout the student lifecycle,” commented Muçaj. She added that traditional communication channels often miss today’s students. Centralising announcements, events, schedules and support networks into a single, mobile-first platform meets students where they are and encourages participation. By measuring digital engagement and community activity in real time, institutions can identify disengaged students and intervene before they drift away. Parts of the process: reassessing assessment A wealth of practical takeaways emanated from an engaging panel session on student evaluation chaired by Inspera’s Ishan Kolhatkar. Director of learning innovation at IMD Sarah Grant underlined how schools can move away from single summative assessments by “focusing more on the process of how we get there” and “thinking more in terms of comprehensive portfolios of learning”. Tools and techniques highlighted for increased use include simulations, role plays, applied projects and coaching conversations. Reflective practices are of particular value, as University of Edinburgh Business School MBA director Julian Rawel emphasised. “What makes us special is our ability to work with students on thinking, reflecting and being critical,” Rawel noted before describing how this deepens students’ understanding of classroom learning. “If you’re reflecting back on your own career, you can start to apply the assignments and essays to something that is specific to you.” UCL MBA director Harveen Chugh, meanwhile, identified the potential in having an “assessment champion” in giving faculty recognition and encouragement for their efforts in implementing innovative approaches. “It’s about leadership and somebody bringing together the knowledge across programmes to highlight and recognise good teaching and assessment practices where they’re taking place.” Chugh also spoke of the importance of maintaining student engagement by communicating the rationale behind new assignments and methods of assessment. In a similar vein, Wits Business School academic director Jones Odei-Mensah pointed to the need to be wary of how regulation around students’ use of AI might impact their feelings towards their institution. “I think detection technologies may have a role to play, but they should not be the foundation of how we build relationships with students or we risk eroding the trust between us and them.”
AMBA & BGA’s director of business school engagement, Debbie Kemp (far right) chaired a panel on leading high-performance teams
Imperial Business School dean Peter Todd (left) shared his thoughts on the evolution of AI with AMBA & BGA CEO Andrew Main Wilson
Olta Muçaj, head of international partnerships for EMEA & APAC at Ready Education, talked about helping students to feel engaged
engineering, science and medicine. A new master’s focused on AI innovation and application, for example, is to be taught by 12 different departments. “We’re looking at how you can bring multidisciplinary curricula together and that starts with thinking about AI as a convergent science. It’s not simply about the AI [technology], or the mathematics underlying it, or electrical engineering... We’re trying to bring all those pieces together.” In Todd’s experience, today’s students are looking for business schools to guide them on how they can find the right balance when using the latest AI tools and agents. However, beyond technical abilities, the soft skills championed by business schools will be at a premium in an employment market disrupted by the influx of digital technologies and automation, according to Todd. “If you take the idea that a company like McKinsey will start hiring at a higher level, students are going to have to be more capable on the soft skills side and there’s an enormous role for us to play there.” Building belonging in the age of AI Olta Muçaj, head of international partnerships for EMEA & APAC at Ready Education, used her session to explore how universities can
Ambition • ISSUE 4 • 2026 21
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