Deans Conference

This facilitated networking session will bring together business school deans to explore the opportunities and challenges facing MBA programs for working professionals. Participants will compare recruiting trends, enrollment strategies, and shifts in program demand. The discussion will also address career outcomes and services, the student experience, and the influence of rankings on program strategy. Attendees will also exchange ideas and promising practices for attracting and retaining talent.

Limited size does not mean limited opportunity. Small business schools can leverage their agility, faculty expertise, and institutional relationships to generate new revenue while advancing societal impact. Through Pacific’s High School Summer Institute and Indiana University-East’s Microschool, this session explores two innovative approaches to serving high school learners, expanding access to business education, strengthening community connections, and building future enrollment pipelines. Presenters will share lessons learned and help participants identify how their schools’ distinctive assets can become platforms for entrepreneurial, mission-aligned growth, financial resilience, and meaningful societal impact. 

Career readiness is becoming an increasingly important measure of learner success under AACSB's 2026 Global Standards for Business Education. This session examines what happens to students before they ever reach a human recruiter, including the growing role of applicant tracking systems and AI-driven interviews. It then explores how business schools can respond at scale by embedding career readiness into required coursework, ensuring every student develops the skills to navigate today's hiring process — not just those who seek out career services. 

How can business schools prepare students for an AI-enabled economy? This Digital Transformation Affinity Group session pairs two complementary perspectives. Jay Thibodeau will share a hiring-informed framework and modular classroom cases that move accounting students from generating AI output to critically evaluating it, building professional judgment without program redesign. Paul Pavlou will explore hyper-personalization: using AI to create individualized learning for each student and tailor advising and career preparation to their aspirations. A discussion follows on how deans can support faculty adoption, preserve students' intellectual autonomy, and use AI to improve educational quality at scale.

Join the WAME Affinity Group for a conversation around Straight Talk: Deans on the Issues That Matter.

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in business and higher education, how should business schools prepare graduates when technical answers are easier to generate, but judgment, communication, collaboration, and ethical decision-making remain essential? 

This session explores how business schools are embedding Professional Skills Development across undergraduate and graduate programs using an open-response, scenario-based Situational Judgment Test. Drawing on early implementations, presenters will share approaches to structured assessment, personalized feedback, reflection, and development across the student journey. Attendees will gain practical ideas for connecting professional skills development with curriculum, career readiness, employer expectations, program-level insights, and AACSB priorities in an AI-enabled environment.

Internships and live-client projects are the gold standard for experiential learning, and they reach a fraction of any graduating class. This session is about the rest of the students: how business simulations give every learner, at any class size, the chance to make real, consequential business decisions and live with the results, not just read about someone else’s. We’ll look at what a simulation-based course actually asks of students and how it complements internships rather than competing with them. We will also share practical look at how the same simulation data can double as documentation for the new AACSB Global Standards’ experiential learning and assurance of learning expectations. 

This session brings together recently appointed deans and first-time AACSB attendees to share experiences and good practices. It begins with the three organizers introducing themselves, followed by Joyce Russell introducing "Deans' Journey Program", after which graduates and the current cohort of the program will be recognized. Matthew Guah will then ask participants to indicate five issues they would like discussed in this session. In small groups, participants will discuss each issue, summarize by a volunteer and present to the entire group. The session organizers will synopsize the findings before the session ends. 

As business schools face growing scrutiny over degree ROI and increasing expectations to demonstrate graduate career outcomes, academic leaders must innovate to ensure student success. This panel brings together three business schools to discuss strategic initiatives that strengthen student outcomes and reinforce the value of a business degree. Panelists will share actionable approaches for embedding market-aligned skills into business curricula and explore how strategic partnerships with Coursera can help bridge the gap between academia and evolving industry needs. Attendees will gain leadership insights into leveraging industry-recognized credentials to enhance graduate employability, respond to changing workforce expectations, and strengthen the value proposition of business education. 

AI is changing what employers expect from graduates and what business schools must do to prepare them. In this session, Cengage’s Keatron Evans will examine what the rise of AI means for business education and the practical steps institutions can take today to strengthen career readiness. Using a past, present, and future framework, he’ll share strategies for building AI literacy, applied learning, and real-world business judgment into the student experience, helping graduates develop the skills and confidence to succeed in an AI-enabled workforce. 

Lily Bi, President and CEO of AACSB International, opens the conference with a warm welcome and a look at the forces shaping business education. She will then share results from AACSB's latest Deans Survey: how deans read the current landscape, where they see the greatest pressures and opportunities, and what it all means for schools in the year ahead.

Today's most pressing challenges, from workforce transformation and AI to climate change and economic inequality, cannot be solved by any one institution acting alone. Yet many collaborations struggle to move beyond good intentions. Drawing on new research into some of the world's most successful cross-sector partnerships, this session explores the principles that enable catalytic collaborations to achieve extraordinary impact. Through real-world examples and discussion with leaders who have built large-scale collaborative initiatives, participants will gain practical insights into building trust, aligning diverse stakeholders, and creating partnerships that last. 

Business school deans are navigating rising expectations, rapid advances in AI, shifting student and employer needs, financial pressures, and continuous organizational change. When the demands keep coming, simply working harder or managing time more efficiently is not enough. The challenge becomes how to sustain the energy, focus, and resilience needed to lead effectively over time. This practical session explores the connection between energy and leadership performance and introduces strategies for protecting capacity in demanding environments. Participants will consider how cumulative demands affect focus and decision-making, and learn simple, intentional practices to reset, recover, and remain effective under pressure.

What does it take to move from wanting to collaborate to actually collaborating effectively? Building on the Catalytic Collaboration research introduced the day before, this practical deep dive takes participants inside the tools and approaches that help diverse stakeholders work together toward a shared result. Participants will explore practical methods for building trust, aligning around a shared purpose, navigating competing priorities, and creating the conditions for effective collective action. The session provides an opportunity to work more deeply with the research and consider how these tools can be applied to collaborations within and beyond their institutions.

Generative AI answers complex exam questions instantly, raising the stakes for business schools confronting AI use, contract cheating, and the security risks of online testing. The focus of the session is protecting confidence in exam results and what they represent: student learning, employer trust, and the credibility of a degree. 

Through the lens of ExamSoft by Turnitin, this session explores practical approaches to: 

Eliminate access to unauthorized resources through secure, offline exam delivery 

Support in-person and remote exams at scale 

Link exam results to learning standards to support assurance of learning and to improve student outcomes

Business school leaders are making consequential decisions amid uncertainty, complexity, and competing constraints. Data can inform those decisions, but it can only take us so far. How do we balance what the data tells us with our own expertise, experience, and intuition? Drawing on her research on decision-making and “quantifying the unquantifiable,” Laura Huang will explore how leaders can bring these different sources of insight together when making difficult decisions. She will challenge conventional assumptions about evidence and intuition and offer practical perspectives on making better decisions in uncertain and complex environments.

Most business schools have embraced AI, but many are still navigating one fundamental question: how should it be governed? From coursework and assessment to grading, academic integrity, and research, institutions are taking very different approaches. Through real-world case studies, deans share how their schools have developed institution-wide policies to establish clear expectations for faculty and students.

What will drive future growth for business education? Reaching and retaining more adult learners.  

As business schools face enrollment pressures, evolving workforce demands, and increased competition, adult learners are a critical growth opportunity. Drawing from the latest Voice of the Online Business Learner research, this session explores what these older students value most, what drives enrollment and persistence, and how institutions can respond. Gain actionable insights to: meet the needs of adult learners, strengthen retention and student outcomes, and inform program strategy and competitive positioning. Discover how data-driven learner insights can help you build stronger programs and achieve sustainable enrollment growth.

In 2022, Sal Khan predicted AI would transform education. Now he’s lived it - and he’s back with a sharper, more grounded story about what’s actually working, what isn’t, and what comes next. In this talk, Sal draws on years of building AI into Khan Academy to break down where AI is genuinely delivering on personalized, mastery-based learning, and where humans remain more essential than ever. He also expands the conversation to the workforce: through the Khan-TED Institute and his upcoming book Job Shock, Sal explores which skills matter most in an AI-driven economy, how workers and students alike need to reskill, and what today’s students should actually be studying to thrive in the world ahead. This is a talk for parents, educators, and leaders wrestling with the same question from different angles: what does an “education safety net” look like when AI is part of the system - not the whole system?