Elevate: Europe, Middle East, and Africa

Connect with peers, meet exhibitors, and explore fresh ideas in the Exhibitor Showcase, a space designed to help you build relationships, discover new solutions, and make the most of your time at the conference.

Begin your day by networking over coffee and refreshments. This is an excellent opportunity to reconnect with colleagues, make new connections, and discuss the sessions ahead.

Artificial intelligence is transforming every industry—and with it, the future of talent. Employers are no longer hiring solely for what graduates know; they are hiring for how quickly they can learn, adapt, collaborate with AI, and create value in an increasingly dynamic workplace. Hear directly from industry leaders on how AI is transforming hiring and workforce expectations, what employers seek in future graduates, and how business schools can stay ahead through stronger industry partnerships.

Network with peers and check out the Discover AACSB area to explore our products and services, including the Academy, technology and data, and additional resources to support your institution. Stop by to visit exhibitors and enjoy coffee and refreshments.

As AI transforms business education, business schools must do more than teach students how to use AI—they must create opportunities for students to build with AI while developing the institutional capabilities to support responsible adoption. This session explores how business schools can foster innovation, prepare faculty and staff, and establish policies that enable AI to be used safely and effectively. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies for scaling AI across their institutions, from curriculum and experiential learning to governance and organizational readiness.

More than a decade after the world convened in Paris to chart a path toward global sustainability, business schools face their own reckoning: sustainability can no longer sit in a single elective, but must be embedded across curriculum, research, and institutional culture. This session brings together forward-thinking institutions to share how they've moved sustainability from the margins to the mainstream — reshaping core courses, faculty incentives, and industry partnerships. Attendees will leave with concrete strategies to accelerate their own school's journey, drawing on the same urgency and collective resolve that brought the world to Paris more than a decade ago.

This session features three rapid-fire talks reimagining what it means for a business school to stay present across a learner's entire career, not just at graduation. Speakers -an institution, an institution-alumni network collaboration, and a learner- each share a vision for a modular, flexible, and inclusive model where schools remain a partner through time. Talks are followed by a live audience Q&A relay, where questions are passed between speakers to surface tensions and connections across perspectives. Attendees leave with concrete insights for building lifelong learning strategies, collaboration mechanisms, and inclusive access into their own programs.

Employability outcomes improve when the people they're meant to serve—employers, students, and regional partners—become co-designers rather than passive recipients. This session explores how business schools are rethinking employability by inviting industry and students into the design process itself, from curriculum and assessment to career services. Together, the featured cases offer a practical playbook for embedding authentic, stakeholder-driven design across the full arc of a student's academic and career journey.

The 2026 Global Standards Refresh introduces targeted updates designed to clarify expectations, enhance alignment, and strengthen the overall accreditation experience. This session will provide a clear overview of what has changed, the rationale behind the updates, and how they may affect strategic planning, accreditation documentation, and continuous improvement processes. Participants will also hear directly from early adopter schools as they share their experiences implementing the refreshed standards, including practical insights, lessons learned, and strategies for a successful transition. Designed for EMEA institutions at all stages of accreditation, the session will conclude with dedicated time for questions, giving attendees the opportunity to gain clarity directly from AACSB experts and leave with greater confidence and actionable next steps.

Industry partnerships are easy to launch and hard to sustain. Using the partnership between Amazon and the American University in Dubai as a featured case study, this session explores how industry and academia can co-create curriculum, embed real-world learning, and navigate the complexities of building collaborations that last. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for developing mutually beneficial partnerships that strengthen education, advance institutional goals, and respond to evolving workforce needs.

Creating accessible learning experiences requires more than providing accommodations—it calls for intentionally designing courses, materials, and learning environments that reduce barriers for students with disabilities from the start. This session explores practical strategies for improving accessibility in business education, from inclusive course design and assistive technologies to emerging tools, including AI, that can support diverse learning needs. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas for creating more accessible learning experiences that empower every student to succeed.

Panelists will discuss their institutions' progress, ongoing improvements, and future ambitions for research impact measurement and how it maps into strategy, before turning interactive to let attendees map their own school's journey and share their toughest barriers.

Bring your questions about Initial and CIR Accreditation and gain practical guidance on preparing for visits.

For more than a century, business schools have prepared leaders for a rapidly changing world. But what happens when the pace of change outpaces the institutions themselves? This session begins with a thought-provoking storytelling presentation that explores the forces reshaping business education—from declining demographics and new competitors to changing employer expectations and technological disruption—followed by a panel discussion where business education leaders debate what business schools may look like by 2035, challenge long-held assumptions about today's models, and share practical insights for building institutions that can thrive in an uncertain future.

Beyond educating future managers, business schools are becoming strategic institutions that shape innovation ecosystems, support economic transformation, and foster international dialogue. Through a series of fast-paced, mini-TED-style talks, visionary leaders will share innovative ideas, bold perspectives, and real-world examples of how business schools are driving change across their institutions and regions. Attendees will leave inspired by fresh thinking on how business schools can strengthen their impact and contribute to the long-term prosperity and global influence of the EMEA region in an era of profound change.

The financial challenges facing business schools are growing more complex—from demographic shifts and changing government support to rising costs and increased market competition. This session explores how business schools across EMEA are responding with new approaches to revenue diversification, portfolio management, partnerships, philanthropy, executive education, and operational efficiency. Attendees will gain practical insights for balancing financial resilience with academic excellence and long-term institutional impact.