This seminar will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Day 1 and end at 5:30 p.m. on Day 2.
Strengthen your institution's strategic planning approach while building a deeper understanding of how effective strategy supports alignment with the AACSB Global Standards for Business Education™.
This newly updated, highly applied two-day seminar brings together contemporary strategic planning practices, AACSB expectations, and responsible use of AI. Participants work directly on the core components of a strategic plan while exploring how mission, stakeholder engagement, strategic priorities, measures of success, risk, resource considerations, and continuous improvement connect within an AACSB-aligned strategic management approach.
The seminar helps participants build an adaptive strategic management system that can guide decisions, align resources, engage stakeholders, monitor progress, and respond as conditions change.
Through guided activities, peer consultation, and responsible use of AI, participants will analyze their institutional environment, clarify strategic choices, develop meaningful goals and measures, and create practical tools they can continue refining with stakeholders after the seminar.
Updated to reflect the AACSB Global Standards for Business Education™
Strengthen your strategic plan not only as an institutional leadership responsibility, but also as a foundation for mission achievement, continuous improvement, innovation, stakeholder engagement, and sustained impact.
Throughout the experience, participants examine connections between their strategic planning decisions and AACSB expectations. Discover how a strong, evidence-informed strategic management process can simultaneously advance institutional priorities and support alignment with AACSB standards.
An Applied, AI-Enabled Learning Experience
Each major topic follows a practical learning cycle:
Understand the concept → Use AI to support an initial analysis or draft → Apply human critique and validation → Gather peer feedback → Refine the work → Identify next steps
Participants learn how AI can accelerate synthesis and exploration without replacing leadership responsibility. Address responsible AI use, including protection of confidential information, verification of evidence, recognition of assumptions, and human review of strategic recommendations.
From Strategic Plan to Strategic Management
Effective strategic planning does not end when a document is approved.
The seminar emphasizes an adaptive approach in which leaders regularly review meaningful evidence, engage stakeholders, assess risk, make resource-informed decisions, and adjust priorities or initiatives as circumstances change.
Who Should Attend
This seminar is designed for business school leaders and professionals who contribute to strategic planning, implementation, continuous improvement, and AACSB alignment, including
- Deans
- Associate and assistant deans
- Accreditation and quality leaders
- Senior administrators
- Faculty and staff with strategic planning responsibilities
Participants may work with their own institutional materials or use a provided business school case for seminar activities.
What You Will Learn
By the end of the seminar, participants will be able to:
- Review the role of strategic planning in AACSB Accreditation.
- Construct mission, vision, and values statements.
- Apply an approach to strategic planning in the context of higher education.
- Differentiate between and construct goals, objectives, and key performance indicators.
- Develop the elements of an initial strategic management system.
What You Will Build
This is a working seminar. Participants will develop and refine practical strategic planning artifacts that can be taken back to their schools, including:
- Environmental scan and SWOT analysis
- Strategic implications and evidence needs
- Competitor analysis and positioning statement
- Stakeholder engagement map
- Purpose, mission, vision, values, and societal impact critique
- Strategic priorities, goals, and objectives
- Measures of success and KPI framework
- KPI data plan
- Strategic risk register and mitigation approach
- Dashboard storyboard
- Approach to monitoring, adaptive planning, and course correction
- 90-day implementation plan
The goal is not to produce a final, board-ready strategic plan during the seminar. Participants leave with strong working drafts, decision frameworks, and a clear path for continued development with their stakeholders.
Leave Ready to Act
Participants leave with more than an understanding of strategic planning. They leave with tangible planning artifacts, peer-informed revisions, and a 90-day implementation plan that can help move their school from planning to action.
The result is a more focused, evidence-informed, stakeholder-connected, and adaptive approach to strategy, one designed to advance institutional priorities while strengthening alignment with the AACSB Global Standards for Business Education.
Facilitators
Tim Mescon is Vice President Americas, Growth and Engagement for AACSB. Most recently he served as Executive in Residence at the Parker College of Business at Georgia Southern University. Previously, for eight years until his retirement, Dr. Timothy S. Mescon was executive vice president and chief officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for AACSB International. In this capacity, Mescon and his team supported close to 600 members and 180+ accredited schools throughout EMEA. Mescon is President Emeritus of Columbus State University in Georgia, where he served for 6 ½ years. Prior he was the dean and Dinos Eminent Scholar Chair for 18 years at the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. He was previously dean at the Perdue School at Salisbury (MD) University and prior to that a tenured faculty member and Assistant Dean at the University of Miami Herbert School of Business and an Assistant Professor of Management at the Carey College at Arizona State University. Mescon is the author of more than 200 articles and case studies, and he has co-authored five books, including "Entrepreneurship: Venture Initiation, Management and Development" 2nd edition (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) and his latest co-edited work, “Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Learning Post-COVID-19- The Crucial Role of International Accreditation,” (Springer, 2022). In 2021 Mescon was named a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Business Schools in the U.K. In 2023 Mescon began a 5-year appointment as a visiting Professor at the Ulster University Business School, in Northern Ireland. He received an Honorary Professorship from Alfred Nobel University in Ukraine and Honorary Doctorate from United Methodist University in Liberia. Dr. Mescon received his Ph.D. from the Terry College at the University of Georgia, MBA from the Cox School at Southern Methodist University and B.A. from Tulane University.
Dr. Libby Rozell currently serves as the Regional Head of the Americas at AACSB International, where she supports member schools across the region and advances AACSB’s mission to foster engagement, accelerate innovation, and amplify impact in business education. Previously, she served as associate dean of the College of Business at Missouri State University and Professor of Management. She taught Organizational Behavior at the graduate and undergraduate levels for over 25 years. Dr. Rozell received her PhD in Business Administration (Management) from the University of Mississippi. For 18 years, she held the title of Kenneth E. Meyer Professor of Management, awarded by the College of Business for her exemplary research performance. Articles she has written have appeared in elite publications such as Personnel Psychology, Group and Organization Studies, and the Journal of Psychology. She has authored over 60 publications and has received several outstanding teaching and research awards.
Contact Us
For more information, please contact [email protected].
