OPINION
Summoning the energy to continue TO INNOVATE AMID UNCERTAINTY
CEO’S COLUMN
Andrew Main Wilson reflects on the AMBA & BGA Global Conference held in Lisbon in May, and shares his own takeaways from the event – at which Business School leaders were challenged to step up a gear in their innovation, or face further disruption
innovation. We’ve been through a change, but I’m not sure it was that innovative. During the pandemic, the solution was obvious, and we had to go online. We’ve all ended up in the same place, and this isn’t a good definition of innovation – we changed. ‘Today there is more uncertainty, and students know we can teach in more flexible ways than we used to, and reach people and places that we didn’t used to. That cat isn’t going back into the bag – we need to innovate. The change was hard and for the innovation to follow, we need to summon the energy again.’ But these challenges were met with inspiring solutions in technology, student engagement and wellbeing, strategy, and delivery in several other sessions. As AMBA & BGA unveiled its new research into ‘transformation’ in association with Salesforce, the findings showed that Business Schools do have the energy, the drive and the passion to embrace this change today, and to move forward into the next era of uncertainty.
UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Two- thirds of students want to learn more about sustainability and want it integrated in their programmes; 80% of students want to work for companies that use environmental practices. ‘Frankly, universities are not responding at the level we need... Research shows that the bulk of people at your institutions recognise the importance of climate change, but only one third of them have them integrated in their curriculum – and not embedded in the whole learning experiences.’ Polman concluded his session by musing: ‘I have to say, there is still more work to be done at the academic level.’ This thinking resonated with delegates throughout the four-day event. We’ve become all too familiar with change, but the message from Polman is that more dramatic and long-term innovation is required. With this in mind, I noted a comment from Matthew Thomas, Director of the MBA programmes at Birmingham University, who, in his panel session on innovation, stated: ‘There is a difference between change and
his time last year, as we took our first tentative steps out of lockdown, and began to hope that the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic was behind us, the
team at AMBA & BGA began planning our first physical Global Conference since the beginning of the virus restrictions. On 15 May this year, more than 300 Business School leaders, corporate heavyweights, and industry partners and sponsors met with us in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon to network in person once again – but also to collaborate as a group, to take stock of the past two years, and to begin to plan for the next phase. From page 12 of this edition, you can read about some of the highlights and key messages that came out of the fascinating discussions. Paul Polman, author of Net Positive, and former CEO of Unilever, delivered our opening keynote address, and, for me, his words were, perhaps, some of the most profound. He said: ‘Management education needs a drastic change, and not a day too soon if we want to achieve the
Andrew Main Wilson, CEO, AMBA & BGA
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