Special Features

INSEAD’s longest-serving Dean, a record-breaking fundraising campaign and three years at #1 in the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking… back in 2013, few would have predicted the achievements of the era that has just come to an end at The Business School for the World. Add a new location in San Francisco, a new market in online Executive Education and a new Master in Management degree programme, and this is probably the most eventful decade in INSEAD history.

On behalf of the entire INSEAD community, for this last Annual Report of a remarkable era, we would like to give thanks once again to Dean Ilian Mihov and Deputy Dean Peter Zemsky for their leadership during this time. It was an amazing partnership and an amazing ride! Here, for those who missed them, is the official list of milestones.

A trajectory for future success

No one can know what the next decade will bring. But, as our new Dean, Francisco Veloso, told INSEAD staff at his first meeting with them, INSEAD’s original mission and values are the right ones to drive decisions in a volatile and unpredictable world. He added that, given where the world is today, the issues that the school’s previous leadership has sought to address over recent years are sure to remain relevant: innovation, impact, inclusivity, efficiency and, above all, sustainability. He concluded, “INSEAD is on a wonderful trajectory.”

The last day of the Academic Year 2022–2023 was a historic moment for INSEAD. It marked not just the end of a visionary deanship but also the close of The Campaign for INSEAD: A Force for Good, officially launched in 2018 with an original target of €200 million. As we finalised the accounts, the total stood at a remarkable €311 million, raised from some 19,000 donors. Furthermore, 52% of MBA alumni contributed, which means that we also surpassed the target of 50% participation.

This Annual Report gives us a chance, once again, to express our thanks to all who played a part in an extraordinary feat of generosity. As Dean Ilian Mihov said on the final day of his tenure: “The Force for Good Campaign serves as a powerful testament to our collective potential.”

The numbers and the generosity tell only part of the story. What counts, above all, is the impact – both on INSEAD and of INSEAD on the wider world. The “Force for Good Effect” is best summed up by the five Campaign pillars:

With the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society, created in 2018, INSEAD successfully integrated the UN’s SDGs into teaching, research and operations across the entire school. Indeed, our flagship MBA programme has now embedded the theme of sustainable development in all 14 of its core courses, and we have pledged to reduce our institution-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 67% before 2035 (compared with 2019 levels). Most importantly, by developing a new generation of responsible business leaders and spreading the word about our research – be it via what we teach in the classroom, share at our presence at events such as Davos, COP26 and through our involvement in Business Schools for Climate Leadership – INSEAD is having a positive influence on sustainability practices throughout the world.

Over one-third of the total amount raised is allocated to supporting the creation of knowledge and innovation that is a force for good in the world. In fact, in May 2020, 60 years after the school’s founding, an alumnus and longtime supporter made a transformational gift – the largest INSEAD has ever received, and indeed amongst the 20 largest gifts ever given to a business school globally – dedicated to safeguarding the future of our cutting-edge research and the meaningful impact it creates in business and society worldwide.

In terms of societal impact, the INSEAD Gender Initiative and the Stone Centre for the Study of Wealth Inequality are playing an important role in understanding the causes, consequences and potential resolutions relating to imbalance and injustice in today’s world. With respect to impact in the entrepreneurial sphere, Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy continues to make waves through its “nondisruptive creation” approach to growth and success. And, with regard to pedagogical impact, the school’s unique virtual reality (VR) library – the largest set of VR management education materials in the world – combined with such innovations as the INSEAD Learning Hub – the first mobile app to enable easy access to a top-tier business education for all – showcases our strength in this domain. In addition, as a result of the Campaign, INSEAD has been able to nurture and grow its targeted research funds and projects, and has 14 new chairs, professorships and fellowships.

Under Dean Mihov’s visionary leadership, which spanned the ten years of the Campaign, alumni contributed 92% of total funds raised. Over half of our alumni made donations, and many – 559 in 2023 alone – also volunteered their time and expertise. Building a culture of philanthropy matters most particularly for INSEAD, because, as an independent business school with no parent university nor government funding, we look to our alumni and friends to contribute to our financial stability and strength.

And, whereas the success of previous campaigns was in large part due to corporate, foundation and government support, we are immensely proud that our alumni are now overwhelmingly the key supporters of the school. Indeed, it is the combination of their love for INSEAD, combined with our academic rigour, their career success and belief in our mission and purpose that propelled the Force for Good Campaign to such heights. We are so fortunate and grateful on many fronts.

INSEAD’s new Dean, Francisco Veloso, was appointed in April 2023 and officially began his mandate on the first day of the new Academic Year. He previously served as Dean of Imperial College Business School in London, and, before that, as Dean of Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics in his native Portugal. He gained his PhD from MIT and began his academic career at Carnegie Mellon University.

Francisco’s research expertise lies in entrepreneurship and innovation – topics about which he has advised governments, policymakers and businesses, as well as being on the boards of several start-ups and established companies.

Many members of the INSEAD community will already have had an opportunity to meet Francisco during his recent travels around the school’s campuses and alumni events. But for those who have not yet had the pleasure, here is a quick Q&A, including an update on his first few months in post.

When I joined the school, there was already a Francisco Veloso in the INSEAD database – my dad. I must have been about 11 or 12 years old when he came here to do an executive programme. The experience clearly had a significant impact on him because it often came up in family conversations. Over time, I’ve come to realise how that exposure to cutting- edge education and a place that brings diverse people together would have impacted a young Portuguese marketing executive in the early eighties – it wasn’t so long after the Revolution, and Portugal was still quite a closed country. He wore an INSEAD T-shirt at home for years afterwards! Until recently, I thought I must have imagined that part, but my sister confirmed it was true when I started as Dean and we discussed this episode.

By virtue of some coincidences, I’ve had some close contact with people associated with INSEAD throughout my career. Perhaps the most salient was when I became Dean of Católica-Lisbon. The late INSEAD Dean, António Borges, a former faculty member and another who received his PhD at our school, worked closely with me on a significant study on the future of the leading schools in Portugal. Unsurprisingly, many of the examples that came up in our discussions were from INSEAD. António became a trusted advisor from then onwards. Later, Católica formed an Executive Education partnership with INSEAD, and I had the privilege of working with another Dean, Dipak Jain, as well as with Ben Bensaou, who is now a colleague.

There were some pleasant surprises indeed. First, throughout my career as an academic and Dean, I had been aware of INSEAD’s strength in Executive Education. But I didn’t have an appreciation of how deep, sophisticated, diverse and impactful our programmes are, as is our ability to operate globally at scale. Second, I had picked up that INSEAD alumni were more connected than at most business schools. But again, I didn’t realise quite how closely involved they are – and how they are such a powerful asset and contribute in so many ways. Third, I had read about INSEAD’s commitment to sustainability and its role as a founder member of Business Schools for Climate Leadership. But I’ve been amazed at the diversity and depth of work across the school in this area, especially with respect to research, the placing of sustainability at the heart of the MBA curriculum and the serious commitment to 'walk the talk' in our operations and activity. It is very palpable how INSEAD is really at the forefront of making business and business education a force for good.

Of course, I’ve listened carefully to people’s concerns as I’ve travelled around our campuses over the last few months, and I’ve picked up several opportunities to improve that were not as visible before I joined. One is the opportunity – verging on a need – to streamline the way we operate globally. It’s good that INSEAD has been so entrepreneurial and grown in so many directions, but it’s probably time to reflect on, prioritise and align some of our innovations and activities. Another example is the work we still have to do with respect to gender equality, to increase the representation of women amongst our faculty and student bodies, something we have committed to as part of our partnerships with the UN HeForShe and Equal4Europe.

INSEAD is on a good trajectory. But I felt it would be important to have an exercise of streamlining, aligning and prioritising our efforts over the next few years, so that we can continue to be a beacon of responsibility in global business education. With that in mind, we have been conducting a process of strategic review with a view to a 'refresh', rather than a 'new strategy'.

There are four strategic pillars. The first is ‘Amplify Global Impact’, which comes from our mission to develop responsible leaders who transform business and society. We need to be front and centre in addressing the role of business in the world, particularly the sustainability agenda, and to do that through our research and teaching, as well as through the way we engage with our alumni and global partners. The second pillar is ‘Reimagine the Learning Experience’. New technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and pressing societal issues, such as sustainability and inequality, will have a major impact on education. And learning itself is becoming lifelong. We have to be at the forefront of all these developments, while continuing to invest in our campuses, which are at the heart of our mission. The third pillar is ‘Promote Resilient Growth’, which is about making shrewd choices across many different options, focusing on the priorities that will enable us to strengthen our strategic autonomy and more efficiently deliver our mission. The fourth is ‘Drive One INSEAD’. It’s part of our identity to be global and diverse, but we must learn to operate more effectively as one school, inclusive and engaged with each other across all constituent parts of our community.

In addition to wanting to leave the world a better place for my children, I’ve experienced – and been inspired by – the way younger generations have a greater passion for the environment, injustice and inequality. But I’m not just a father: I’m a father of three daughters. Two of them are adopted and from a different ethnicity. So, gender equality, diversity and inclusion are not abstract issues for me; they’re ever-present in our family. This personal element underscores my commitment to tackle these challenges. What better way to do so than through INSEAD, with its real-word and far-reaching impact, and whose very mission is to bring together people, cultures and ideas to develop responsible leaders who transform business and society?

The Force for Good effect now permeates everything that INSEAD does. From insightful academic research to the MBA classroom to energy-saving measures on campus, social and environmental impact are at the heart of this school’s identity – thanks, in no small part, to the hard work of the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society. What’s more, sustainability is a powerful new source of competitive advantage – a fact that is evidenced on almost every page of this report. Here are just a few of the most significant developments of 2022–2023.

As of January 2024, INSEAD’s oldest programme has a new curriculum. Following a comprehensive review, the decision was announced in April 2023 to integrate social and environmental considerations into every aspect of our flagship MBA degree. Ilian Mihov, who was then Dean, explained, “We strive to develop our MBA students into responsible leaders, who will not only deliver prosperity, but also embrace sustainable practices to lead businesses that are a force for good.”

As Dean Francisco Veloso pointed out just before taking up his post, the challenge for business schools is to supply tools and frameworks for sustainability strategy and operations to meet the high demand from companies. So, the launch of the Sustainable Business Initiative in 2023 is an important institutional development. Academic Director, Professor Atalay Atasu PhD’07 explains the thinking behind this new cross-disciplinary research centre: “Academic research is independent, objective, grounded in rigorous methodologies, and has the purpose of creating new knowledge. Rather than solving immediate organisational problems, academic research aims to create a sustainable change in the system for greater good.”

Atalay is already passing on his considerable learning in this field to executives through the INSEAD Business Sustainability Programme, which he co-directs with Professor Karel Cool. In addition, he is part of a team – including fellow faculty members, as well as colleagues in Campus Services and the Hoffmann Institute – which is putting the school’s research and teaching on sustainability into practice. In 2021–2022, the team’s work resulted in a commitment to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 67% (from 2019 levels) by 2035. And in the summer of 2023, this pledge entered its next phase with the launch of a project to map out future Scope 3 measures, addressing the emissions for which we are indirectly responsible throughout our supply chain. The facts are clear. Like many of our client companies and recruitment partners, we will not reach our own target unless we achieve a reduction in the emissions by organisations, both upstream and downstream, of INSEAD. It is simply not enough to focus on our own direct Scope 1 emissions (for example, through heating and air conditioning our campuses) or less direct Scope 2 carbon-cutting measures (for example, buying electricity generated from renewable sources).

Those who would like to learn more about our ongoing sustainability journey – and apply the lessons to their own organisations – can now read about it in a case study by Atalay and Laura Heely MBA’17J: Carbon Commitments: Designing a Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Plan for INSEAD Business School. In addition, the INSEAD Business Sustainability Series of events, hosted by the San Francisco Hub for Business Innovation in 2023 and led jointly by Professors Atasu and Cool, is still available to view online. The talks and discussions offer expert insights from faculty and alumni about opportunities for businesses that are ready to embrace sustainability as a source of innovation, continuous improvement and positive impact on the world.

As well as our own operations and those of our suppliers, clients and partners, INSEAD is seeking to influence the entire global business community by collaborating with our peers. The school is a founder member of Business Schools for Climate Leadership, a partnership between eight institutions with European origins, which has recently been expanded to include Africa and Middle East clusters. The group is founded on the belief that business schools have a responsibility to inspire and guide future leaders, while simultaneously holding existing business leaders accountable and collaborating with companies to establish models for best practice.

The crowning event of the year, however, was INSEAD’s own Business & Society Summit, held in June 2023. To mark the Hoffmann Institute’s first five years of achievements, we welcomed more than 450 delegates to Fontainebleau for a day of reflection, discussion and celebration. Speakers included faculty, students and prominent advocates of a more sustainable future, including Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and author of Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take. He pointed out that “Sustainability is nothing else than putting the future of your children and their children ahead of your own personal greed.” And the Institute’s founding donor, André Hoffmann MBA’90D reminded us that we all have a role to play: “We are all in it together. It’s a joint effort. Sustainable inclusive prosperity is absolutely indispensable.”