ESSEC Business School’s Paris-La Défense campus is located in Paris’s famed business district. ESSEC is launching a new strategic plan that includes creation of new degree programs, international hubs, and centers of research.
In summer of 2017, Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi sat down to write a sort of legacy document for the incoming dean of Essec Business School.
The French B-school was facing a bit of a leadership vacuum. Dean Jean-Michel Blanquer had been recruited as France’s Minister of National Education in President Macron’s first administration. Vinzi, then dean of faculty and academic affairs, was named interim dean, but he himself was preparing to go on sabbatical to the U.S.
Vinzi figured the next dean, whoever it turned out to be, would appreciate a roadmap for the way ahead, a leadership vision according to ESSEC’s values and philosophy.
That vision eventually evolved in ESSEC’s 2020-2024 Rise Strategy. The new dean turned out to be Vinzi himself.
“We want to be recognized internationally as the school that spearheads the future of business education,” Vinzi tells Poets&Quants as ESSEC launches its new strategic plan.
“Business education can no longer be ‘business as usual,’ and that’s an important commitment we’re making. While we must remain humble in approaching these challenges, being humble doesn’t mean lacking determination or conviction.”
ESSEC’S NEW TRANSCEND STRATEGY
Four years after Rise’s launch, ESSEC has released its new vision to both build on Rise’s achievements while preparing leaders for what the school defines as the “future fit” of business. Its Transcend Strategy for 2024-2028 outlines four large ambitions focused on the future while staying true to its humanist values: transformative education, multicultural leadership, reinvented management, and large-scale impact.
Transcend includes several new initiatives and programs to help it meet its ambitions.
First, ESSEC will launch a new Center for Geopolitics & Business as well as a dual degree in law and management with UCLA School of Law. The intersection between business and geopolitics is a key feature of its ambition to reinvent management by transcending borders.
The transdisciplinary research and pedagogical innovation Center will be visible at all four of its campuses – Paris-Cergy, Paris-La Défense, Singapore and Rabat, Morocco. The new dual degree in management and law is open to students in the ESSEC Master in Management (MiM) program specializing in Law, as well as those in the International Business Law and Management (DAIM) MS program.
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Second, it is launching two new degrees as part of its transformative education ambition. Its new hybrid Executive MBA blends online (70% of the program) and in-person learning (30%) to be more flexible for working professionals around the world. Students will need to be out of their offices just 20 days over the 18-month program. The first intake will be June 2025. It will add to ESSEC’s current MBA portfolio which includes its one-year, full-time Global MBA and several in-person EMBA options in different parts of the world.
It is also launching an International Program in Business Administration (IPBA), a five-year combined Bachelor-Master’s program, offered in English on its Rabat campus. After five years, students will be able to receive a Master’s in Financial Engineering & Data Analysis or a Master’s in International Business & Supply Chain Management. It targets students from around the world and is designed to train leaders who will contribute to Africa’s growth.
Finally, ESSEC will launch new hubs in both New York City and London, bringing together the local alumni communities while strengthening its presence in the strategic cities. The school has 1,500 alumni in New York, Montreal, and Toronto and plans to develop further partnerships in the area. The school also has about 1,600 alumni in London.
Q&A WITH ESSEC DEAN VINCENZO VINZI
At a recent visit to ESSEC’s Paris-La Défense campus, Poets&Quants got the chance to sit down with Vinzi – the first non-french dean of ESSEC (Vinzi is Italian by birth) as well as the first ESSEC professor promoted to the deanship. We talked about the vision of the Transcend Strategy and putting ambition into practice. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s begin with an introduction and your professional journey to ESSEC Business School.
Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi, nouveau directeur de l’ESSEC
I started my career as a professor in statistics, joining ESSEC in 2007. In 2011, I was elected dean of faculty by my peers. It’s a three-year term that can be renewed once. I was in my second and final term in the spring of 2017, preparing for a sabbatical. However, the then-dean and president of ESSEC left to become the Minister of Education in President Macron’s first government, and he left within 30 minutes of the announcement. (Joking)
At the time, I was ready for my sabbatical in the U.S., but the stakeholders at ESSEC asked me to manage the interim period. This was in the summer of 2017. I thought, “Well, the dean is leaving, and I’m about to go on sabbatical… maybe I should write something as a legacy for the next leadership.”
What started as a document for the transition became a broader vision for the school. I became a candidate during the international search, and I was appointed as dean at the end of December 2017, officially taking the role in January 2018.
For context, please give some background on the Rise Strategy and its underlying vision.
Our Rise strategy launched in October 2020, right between the lockdowns in France – one week after the first lockdown and one week before the second. We are now landing Rise, but it’s never really “finished.”
RISE’s main objective was crucial: to train and equip leaders who can face societal challenges – not just those related to business, but also those beyond business. In 2020, we were being quite pioneering. We were already discussing ecological and social transitions, and we combined them into a single strategic priority encompassing both environmental and social dimensions. We didn’t want to separate concerns about the planet from concerns about people, and “People and Planet Together” was central to this vision.
Rise’s second priority was artificial intelligence, technology, and data. We established the interdisciplinary laboratory called Metalab, which sits at the intersection of business disciplines, hard sciences, and the humanities. The goal is to ensure that the leaders we train are well-versed in these topics and understand their impact on organizations, companies, and human beings overall.
The third priority was entrepreneurship and innovation, and we’ve seen many realizations there. In 2020, amidst all the uncertainties of the world, I felt it was important not to view these challenges as reasons to fear or shut down, but rather as a call to action. That was the core idea of Rise: a call to action to not fear but seize the opportunity to make a real impact.
Of course, a school is also a place for reflection, debate, and the creation of new knowledge. But reflection must be accompanied by action, and that’s why we placed these thematic priorities at the heart of our strategy in 2020 – to act boldly and with purpose.
So, in a nutshell, Rise 2020 was very much about breaking down silos. We aimed to ensure that these important topics weren’t just for specialists or confined to individual areas but were made relevant for 100% of our students. We took a 360-degree approach – integrating these topics into pedagogy, research, and even the operations of the school to engage with respect to the environment.
It’s interesting that you were thinking deeply about AI back then, even before ChatGPT emerged and really astonished everyone.
The need was always tied to a humanistic approach, with people at the core. Even though we didn’t know about ChatGPT back then – of course, it arrived in November 2022 – we recognized that when you talk about technology, especially AI and data, it’s not just about technological evolution. It’s also about how we, as human beings, adopt and integrate it.
Take smartphones, for example. When they were introduced, we received technological user guides. However, no one gave us a social user guide for how to handle the deeper impacts of smartphones. The technology itself wasn’t the issue; the challenge was how we, as humans, approached it. Smartphones have transformed companies, organizations, how we work, and how we (sometimes poorly) balance professional and personal life. They’ve even affected how we disconnect or not.
Technology has imposed a way of living and working that, because we weren’t prepared for it, is often overwhelming. I believe that with AI, we need to reverse this process. The technology is already here, but we should be asking how humans can take advantage of it without being overwhelmed or suffering the unintended consequences of its implementation.
To give you a concrete example, we were selected by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) as the school in France to study the impact of technology – specifically AI – on the future of work and jobs. We also conducted a similar study for the American Chamber of Commerce to examine how companies and organizations are influenced by the rapid rise of AI.
This is the role of business schools: to help organizations evolve with new technology while addressing ethical, behavioral, and social issues. The goal is to ensure that we benefit from technology, using it to serve humanity rather than allowing humanity to be subjugated by it.
So, by the time ChatGPT rolled out, you already had a lot of the infrastructure in place to study it.
Yes. We approached technology with a focus on both the technical and human mindset. Of course, we needed the art and science aspects as well. Now, we have a highly developed department within the school, which is one of the most productive in Europe in terms of research.
We also did two key things: First, we strengthened our ties with engineering schools, including partnerships with institutions like CentraleSupélec in France and a double degree program with Columbia University’s School of Engineering in the U.S. This helped us break down silos between the business side, organizational aspects of technology, and the science and engineering side, ensuring they work together.
Second, we created guilds of professors within the school to foster collaboration across these areas.
In any business school or higher education institution, departments often operate in silos because each department is responsible for its own discipline. As knowledge becomes more specialized, this deep focus can lead to cutting-edge advancements in specific fields. However, the risk is losing sight of the broader, holistic view of what’s happening in society.
These guilds aren’t new administrative units, but rather spaces where professors from different departments can come together. We established two guilds: one focused on environmental, ecological, and social transitions, and the other on artificial intelligence and related topics. Professors from various departments meet twice a month to discuss pedagogy and research in these areas, and we’ve found it to be very effective.
A digital rendering of ESSEC’s Pierre Nanterme Center for Responsible Leadership, optimized for digital teaching and modular spaces promoting interaction with the corporate world. It opened in late 2023.
What would you say are ESSEC’s biggest accomplishments emerging from the Rise strategy?
Among many achievements, one of the key initiatives we launched is the ESSEC Momentum Studio which is an incubator focused on deep-tech startups. A few years ago, students interested in entrepreneurship tended to come to ESSEC with a specific idea that the school would help develop. Now, there are 10 to 12 times more students coming in with an entrepreneurial spirit, but without a specific idea. In the Momentum Studio, we bring together these talented students with promising scientific research, and in this space new entrepreneurial ideas are born. This initiative has been very successful and continues to grow.
These three thematic priorities – entrepreneurship, technology, and environmental transition – are deeply interconnected. For instance, when we talk about cleantech, we’re addressing entrepreneurship, technology, and environmental concerns all at once. Just as we wanted to avoid silos between disciplines, we also encouraged interaction between these pillars.
We’ve launched several academic programs. For example, our Master of Science in Data Science and Business Analytics is currently ranked No. 3 in the world. We also recently introduced a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Management Science. These programs highlight how we integrate research, societal needs, and pedagogy into our educational offerings.
On environmental and social transition issues, we’ve been ranked No. 1 in France for two consecutive years by Les Échos START, a journal that ranks business and engineering schools based on their engagement with those topics. This recognition shows that we are “walking the talk” – following through on the ambitions outlined in our strategy.
What do you think the RISE Strategy and its achievements say about ESSEC as a business school?
I believe ESSEC is well known for its pioneering spirit, which has been present throughout its history. The school has consistently been ahead of the curve in many areas, often doing things before others. This reflects our entrepreneurial mindset and our commitment to innovation, which is truly at the heart of ESSEC’s identity.
We also have a strong humanistic tradition. ESSEC was founded by the Jesuits in 1907, and if you look at our original charter, it’s fascinating to see that the value proposition, even back then, was to reconcile business with ethics.I don’t think many business schools in 1907 were talking about that. This has evolved into what we now call a humanistic approach, which means putting people at the core of everything we do. It’s deeply ingrained in our DNA.
Excellence is another key pillar of ESSEC. These values shaped the development of the RISE strategy.
NEXT PAGE: Diving into ESSEC’s new Transcend Strategy
ESSEC’s Singapore campus is one of four campuses of the French business school. It also has two in Paris and another in Morocco.
Well, let’s talk then about the Transcend Strategy. What was the ESSEC community thinking about as you set about devising the new vision?
In our strategic intent, we define it as “future-fit business innovation.” What do we mean by “future-fit”? There are two elements: First, let’s briefly analyze the broader ecosystem, the higher education sector, and the school itself.
In the ecosystem, we’re dealing with significant topics like the climate crisis, technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, and demographic transition. I think the demographic transition, in particular, doesn’t get enough attention. It’s extremely important because people are staying in companies and organizations longer as the retirement age increases, while a new generation is entering the workforce with different mindsets and familiarity with new technologies. We have a responsibility to address this demographic shift, ensuring that senior people within organizations are also supported.
So, when we look at the ecosystem, we see that the thematic priorities we set with the RISE strategy remain highly relevant. We’ve also added a fourth priority now: geopolitics and business, which has become a new transversal priority for us.
When we shift our focus to the higher education sector, we see that it too is in transition. This is quite new. Historically, during times of crisis or transitions, higher education often became a kind of refuge – a place where people believed knowledge would remain valuable forever. But that’s no longer the case. Today, we face the obsolescence of knowledge, skills, and competencies at an accelerated pace. This affects all sectors.
The impact of digital transformation and technological advancements is driving this change. Students are arriving with new aspirations and expectations, and as a result, higher education itself is in a state of transition. This reality must be taken into account as we move forward.
The supply side of education is also changing. A few years ago, our competitors were primarily other business schools and universities. Now, we’re seeing many new players in the field – EdTech companies, education startups, and even consulting firms making education part of their strategic development. On the demand side, students are arriving with new aspirations, needs, and commitments, and all of this is evolving quickly. Rather than seeing this as something to fear, I believe it presents an opportunity for us to adapt and grow.
And finally, when we look at RISE and bring all of these elements together, we realized that we need to transcend to a different level. We need to transcend this physical place, transcend borders, transcend the usual impact we make, and transcend the traditional boundaries between sectors. Transcendence, in this context, means committing to creating future-fit business education that fosters positive progress.
What are the main pillars of Transcend?
For me, this concept of “positive progress” is key. When my generation talked about progress, we used to think that in 20 years, thanks to economic development and technological advancements, we would be better off than we are now. But I think the younger generation today fears progress and fears the future, whether rightly or wrongly. I believe we, in higher education, have a responsibility to educate, to create new models, and to prepare for a future that is not only better but also desirable.
The whole objective of “future-fit” education is two dimensional. First, how do we ensure that our business education remains relevant, despite the sector’s transition, the obsolescence of skills and knowledge, and other challenges? It means teaching students how to learn to learn, embracing lifelong learning.
The second dimension is how we prepare our students and society for a more desirable future. That’s the core intention.
This translates into four ambitions. The first ambition is related to guaranteeing education that is transdisciplinary, transformative, and personalized.
Transdisciplinary education goes beyond interdisciplinary, involving strong synergies between disciplines as well as robust relationships with non-academic stakeholders. It means being both academically rigorous and practically relevant by engaging with organizations outside of academia.
Transformative education means it’s not just about filling students’ heads with knowledge and competencies but about helping them transform as human beings. It’s about guiding students and participants in higher education to discover themselves, question their beliefs, and grow personally.
Personalized education acknowledges that one size doesn’t fit all. Learners progress at different paces and stages in life. The integration of online and technological tools is key to enriching the experience and tailoring education to individual needs.
The second ambition is to cultivate inclusive, influential, and multicultural leadership. We want our students and participants to become leaders who inspire others and truly make a difference. Inclusive leadership is vital because, in today’s world, we often lose the ability to engage in dialogue. Higher education has a responsibility to foster dialogue, which requires active listening and openness to different perspectives. Multiculturalism is equally important, as it underscores inclusivity and the desire to have a positive influence on the world.
The third ambition is to reinvent management. We are at a point where it’s no longer enough to just build on existing knowledge. We need to create management practices that foster a prosperous and resilient world. This requires a transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approach, breaking down barriers not only between academic disciplines but also between academia and the corporate world. Ecological, environmental, and social transitions, as well as entrepreneurship, innovation, and the advancements from Meta Lab in artificial intelligence, data, and technology, will play important roles.
Geopolitics and business will also be key components. We are establishing a Center for Geopolitics and Business as part of this new strategy, because at the end of the day, the whole objective is that we co-construct and co-create disruptive models with businesses as well as the civil society.
And the fourth ambition?
The fourth and final ambition is to invest for large-scale impact. This is about making ESSEC a workplace that values both people and performance. It also brings up an important question regarding the business model of a business school. ESSEC is a non-profit organization, and I believe it should remain that way. It’s structured as an association, and many schools in France and around the world are transitioning to for-profit models or aligning themselves with investment funds.
However, when we consider academic freedom, investments in research, infrastructure, and digital tools – especially those that don’t yield short-term profits – academic independence becomes crucial. That’s why it’s so important for ESSEC to remain non-profit. We don’t have shareholders or distribute dividends, so when the school operates with a healthy business model, we can reinvest in the quality of student services, faculty recruitment, and strategic priorities.
What are some of the key tangible initiatives announced in the Transcend plan to help you meet some of these ambitions?
When we talk about transdisciplinary – again the proof is in the pudding – we’ve just signed a double degree agreement with UCLA, combining management and law, which illustrates how we’re expanding from management into other disciplines. In France, we’ve also partnered with the Catholic Institute of Paris to offer a double degree in management, philosophy, and ethics.
This is especially relevant when we talk about giving meaning to what we do and addressing ethical issues, including those related to AI. It’s crucial that we extend our reach across disciplines by building strong relationships, partnerships, alliances, and double degree programs with institutions that specialize in different fields.
When we talk about transcending boundaries, it’s not just about subject matter—it’s also about how we approach learning. We’ve launched a couple of programs, including a hybrid Executive MBA. Traditionally, the Executive MBA has been a very in-person, classroom-based experience, but we believe technology offers new opportunities. There’s a clear demand for hybrid learning in this space.
Additionally, we’ve just started a bachelor’s program in France, aimed at a completely different audience: top athletes. (By the way, the chief organizer of the Olympic Games is one of our alumni. This speaks to the diverse and accomplished ESSEC community.)
In Europe, and particularly in France, one of the biggest challenges for elite athletes is balancing their sports career with academic life. Often, when athletes excel in both, they’re forced to choose one or the other. Families might push them to leave sports to focus on academics, or they might prioritize sports and neglect their studies.
In many cases, these athletes end up going to the U.S., where the higher education system is more adept at accommodating both academic and athletic commitments. What we wanted to do was offer an alternative to that. And one of the students in this program is one of the French Olympic finalists in fencing.
The multidisciplinary HEPTA Bachelor’s degree is a joint venture between ESSEC, CentraleSupélec, and Sciences Po – so business, engineering, and public affairs. It’s done both online and on site., and it’s a three year bachelor program that can be extended up to six years. And when we announced the program, French president
With the new strategy, you announced a couple of new hubs, including one in New York City – the ESSEC North American Hub. Is that an effort to attract more U.S. students?
We already have a large community of alumni in North America, especially in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Many of our alumni are in fields like hospitality management, which is one of ESSEC’s long-standing areas of expertise. We also have a strong presence in finance and the luxury sector across Europe and North America. Our hubs will nurture relationships with these alumni and industry sectors.
One of the major successes of the RISE strategy has been the development of numerous double-degree programs with top North American institutions. For example, we have a double degree with Columbia University’s business and engineering schools, focusing on data, business, and artificial intelligence. We also have a partnership with Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon, and another with Parsons School of Design in New York, the top design school in the world, which connects executive education with management, design, luxury, and technology.
Given our many academic partners in North America, it’s crucial to maintain and strengthen these relationships. We’re also seeing more students from the U.S. enrolling at ESSEC, which makes this expanded presence all the more important. It is the sixth largest nationality for enrollment for us.
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