How a Quality Business School Experience is Shaping Tomorrow’s Leaders
In today’s business world, executives aren’t just business leaders—they’re change agents, driving the futures of their industry via impact and innovation. And while making that happen requires a solid background of skills and education, there is one quality that stands out as the greatest prerequisite: leadership.
At International Business University (IBU), leadership isn’t just a concept—it’s a core principle.
Explains IBU’s chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur, “We live in an era of rapid evolution. Economic, societal, environmental, and technological changes are happening at a dizzying pace. To remain effective and competitive in such an environment, we need innovative, forward-thinking leaders equipped with cutting-edge knowledge and foresight.”
“Live and learn”
How does IBU equip the next generation of leaders with these critical attributes?
It takes more than just textbooks and classroom lectures.
“IBU was established with a focus on differentiation through practice and example,” Hamdullahpur says. “The core principles that founded IBU are embedded in the overall student experience and reinforced through daily academic learning and practice. Learning occurs in an environment where simply ‘learning’ is not enough—students must ‘live and learn.’"
More than merely working to impart skills, for Julien Papon, who teaches entrepreneurship, innovation, and business growth planning, it’s about establishing a whole mindset.
“IBU’s courses on entrepreneurship and innovation at both the undergraduate and MBA levels are entirely designed to nurture each of our students’ entrepreneurial mindset, one that is focused on personal discovery, growth and learning by doing,” Papon says.
In-demand skills and attributes
Developing this mindset starts with five foundational pillars: creativity, critical thinking, resilience, communication and collaboration. Papon’s classes—and indeed, all of IBU’s offerings—are designed to nurture these specific qualities.
“Not all of our students go on to become entrepreneurs,” he says. “But even in the context of employment in businesses of all sizes, this entrepreneurial mindset will set students apart because they can think more critically about assessing the real nature of a problem in the real world and come up with a range of solutions.”
For Gina Jeneroux, a professor of human resources focused on future work and skills strategy, this style of thinking aligns with the qualities in hottest demand among employers.
“These include future-focused human leadership to set a strong vision, communicate with impact, engage and collaborate with empathy and resilience, and demonstrate a growth mindset. We also focus on things like digital and data acumen to keep pace with technology, and business and financial acumen to effectively navigate market dynamics, understand how the business makes money, and drive impact through effective strategy, planning and operations,” Jeneroux says.
Cutting-edge curricula
This flexible, forward-looking thinking is something IBU brings to its own curriculum, enabling faculty to take on subjects that are so new, and so quickly evolving, textbooks haven’t caught up yet.
Take Marc Lijour, a professor of practice in blockchain and digital transformation, Lijour says his students benefit every day from his own real-world experiences working at the technology firm Exaion and advising startups with Creative Destruction Lab.
“I’m using my industry expertise as a jumping board to engage students in leading-edge real-world scenarios involving emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, robotics, and quantum,” says Lijour.
As an instructor, working with the next generation of leaders and focusing on such forward-thinking subjects is thrilling for Lijour too. “I feel like I’m coaching in the national league. Some of my students are going for the gold medal. It’s hard not to be proud of them,” he says.
Visit ibu.ca to learn more.
