Illustration by PJ Loughron

Illustration by PJ Loughron

How has your experience as Dean of the School differed from your experience as a member of the faculty?

Being on campus and engaging with faculty, staff, and students is something I have done for many years, and the energy I get from these interactions is one of the things that I most love about Harvard Business School. I have found the Dean’s role to involve a lot more interactions with other people, too: alumni and business leaders, fellow deans at Harvard and other business schools, and visitors from around the globe, for example. Through these meetings I’ve gained a greater appreciation for how deeply people care about the School and the role they wish to see us to play in the world. I’ve also come to see how the collective efforts of this community are the lifeblood of the institution: The faculty and staff work together to create an exceptional environment for teaching, learning, and research, and the alumni offer their time, talent, and treasure to propel us forward. I draw great inspiration from this.

What did you find to be most challenging about the transition?

The sheer complexity of the organization and range of issues that must be dealt with on a daily basis. Angela Crispi (MBA 1990), our executive dean for administration, has been a wonderful partner in this respect. Early on, as I was thinking about our agenda and the priorities we might pursue, she reminded me that every day would bring some number of seashells washing up on the shore—all of which would also require time and attention, be they challenges or opportunities. You can’t ignore them; but you also can’t let them consume you, because you still have to manage the rest of the organization, and you still want to pursue the initiatives and innovations that will move the School forward. I’m a big believer that you are never too old to learn new things. So I’ve made a practice of going back to my notes at the end of each week to see and reflect on what I have learned. Invariably I say “wow,” because it turns out I’m learning something from almost everything I do. These lessons and insights help me navigate the challenges of the job.

Do you have a favorite moment from the past two years?

How can I choose just one? [Laughs] So far, it would have to be the very first time I took the stage in Klarman Hall as Dean to welcome the MBA Class of 2023. It was our first time gathering in person since the pandemic. Everyone was masked, but the energy in the room—the nerves, the excitement, the happiness—was palpable. That is a moment that I know every one of those students will always remember: They were about to begin a journey that would significantly change the trajectory of their lives. I loved being part of that.

You’ve talked about the pandemic as the gateway to the School’s future. What opportunities for HBS do you see ahead?

I say this in the spirit of finding the silver lining in a difficult and, for many, even tragic situation. For all the disruption the pandemic caused at HBS, and the real toll it took on many individuals, it also pushed us, quickly and forcefully, in directions it otherwise might have taken us years to pursue. Consider remote teaching, and then the hybrid classroom, where we had to learn how to teach by the case method in new and different modalities. These were huge lifts for our IT and operations teams and for our faculty and students, and we failed fast (and often) many times before we were satisfied. But we also learned a lot about our ability to adapt and innovate. It makes me optimistic about what we can do post-pandemic. We’ve already begun to experiment by inviting alumni to the hybrid classroom as participants in case discussions. Professor Karim Lakhani, for example, led a Short Intensive Program (SIP) last January called the Business of Artificial Intelligence. In addition to the 50 MBA students who enrolled and were in the classroom, 200 alumni and other business leaders participated using the hybrid technology—some in the “front row,” meaning they attended each day and were deeply engaged, and others “general admission,” meaning they attended less regularly and largely observed. In addition, a number of my colleagues are imagining inviting faculty who are interested in teaching our materials to observe classes virtually. We see opportunities to reach many more leaders than ever before so they too can benefit from our transformational learning models.

Tell us more about the two new institutes you’ve launched, Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society (BiGS) and the Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard (D^3). What is their focus, and what do you hope to accomplish through them?

For many decades, business has been recognized as a force for good—lifting millions of people out of poverty, providing products and services that have improved people’s standards of living, and creating fulfilling jobs and careers. But the challenges facing the world today require business to do even more—to address persistent economic inequality, to advance equity, or to reverse climate change. This is not just a moral or social imperative (though it is, of course, both); increasingly, it’s an economic imperative, too. With BiGS, we see a number of ways that our faculty, through their research and thought leadership, can help address these challenges. For example, we are the first academic partner of the OneTen Initiative, which seeks to create 1 million living-wage jobs over 10 years for Black and underrepresented minority women and men who do not have a college education.

If you believe, as I do, that talent is more evenly distributed in the world than opportunity, the OneTen Initiative will give business leaders access to a huge pool of talent while also addressing an important societal issue. Other members of the faculty are doing research on new ways of measuring the business indicators that reflect an organization’s financial, social, and environmental performance. This will help in developing market solutions to confront environmental problems. In addition, last year we opened our mid-US research center with a goal of identifying opportunities for investment, innovation, and new engines of growth in geographies where this has been less prevalent. All of this will be crucial.

In the arena of digital, data, and design, it’s clear that digital technologies and data science, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, are disrupting operations, business models, and businesses around the world and will continue to do so. Web 3.0, blockchain, the metaverse, and quantum-edge computing are just a few examples. In this environment, leaders must understand how to use data for decision-making (and use judgment for data); how to use design-thinking approaches to address unmet needs for innovation; and how to leverage the opportunities of digitization and digital transformation while paying attention to issues such as ethics, privacy, bias, and cybersecurity. This understanding will be vital to successful organizations in the future.

Both BiGS and D^3 will provide faculty members at HBS and other Harvard schools with a powerful foundation for accelerating research on big, multidisciplinary problems. Their success will be defined by the impact of the research, the creation of a more porous and dynamic research ecosystem, the integration of new content and insights into the School’s curricula, and the ability to help companies be more competitive. Ultimately, we hope the institutes will position HBS and the University overall as global leaders in reshaping the landscape of the digital-first world and the role of business in society.

What changes is HBS making to the curriculum to prepare students for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for business leaders?

The curricula in all our academic programs is driven by faculty research, which is always evolving. Through their work with practitioners, and in the field, faculty are able to capture remarkable insights and bring them directly to the classroom, ensuring that even while students learn enduring and timeless concepts, they’re also engaging in leading-edge thinking. For example, MBA students will experience the work we’re doing in BiGS and D^3 in the form of a new short module in the Required Curriculum; “sprints” based on the work of the labs throughout the year; Short Intensive Programs (SIPs) during the January term; new cases in the RC and EC; and opportunities for independent projects. Moreover, the mapping we’ve done to understand what is being taught across different courses in the RC will allow us to identify opportunities for innovation in the first-year curriculum.

What opportunities can HBS realize from digital transformation?

Our aspiration is to expand the reach and accelerate the impact of our work. That’s a bold vision and long-term goal, so we also are focusing on some specific areas at the outset. The three opportunities we’ll pursue initially are lifelong learning for alumni, supporting a digital research infrastructure, and expanding the reach and impact of our ideas, courses, and cases. If we do these well, we’ll be able to unlock many areas of opportunity. We’ve seen one glimpse of the possibilities in a simulation created by Professor Mitch Weiss for students in The Entrepreneurial Manager. In class, students negotiate terms for a pool of VC money. The simulation draws on PitchBook data from real pitches, and it uses AI and machine learning to make investment offers to the students that they can accept or try to negotiate further, which creates a powerful learning moment.

Eventually, I can imagine that digitalization will enable us to create a two-sided platform to facilitate career and professional development, connecting MBA students and employers based on needs and interests. I also could imagine student experiences in the MBA Program being enhanced through the use of recommendation engines for courses. Or digitalization could help improve HR practices for staff through the use of people analytics. The list could go on and on. The beauty of digitalization is that the tools decentralize innovation so that it can happen at the departmental level within organizations.

You’ve often said that talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. What is HBS doing to level the playing field?

Our starting point is the racial equity plan we adopted in September 2020. It continues to evolve and remains our touchpoint for measuring progress in this crucial area. We’ve pursued action in a number of areas. Our focus in the MBA program is improving affordability and access. In August, we announced further investments in financial aid that would cover the entire cost of tuition and course fees for the 10 percent of students who demonstrate the greatest financial need. We’ve also revised the financial aid formula to factor in socioeconomic background, in addition to personal income, assets, and undergraduate debt, and instituted a need-based application-fee waiver. We’ve strived to widen the funnel of individuals we recruit to the School.

Of course, once more diverse people have joined our community, we must support them by developing a culture of inclusion that enables every individual to achieve their best. The institutional structures we have created include the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We were delighted to announce the appointment of Terrill Drake as our first chief diversity and inclusion officer in June 2021. The Race, Gender, and Equity Initiative will also spur faculty research and thought leadership in this arena.

What will your main areas of focus be for the coming year?

We’re looking to accelerate work in a number of areas in the coming year. We welcomed BiGS Racial Equity Fellows this past summer and, even as we spur new work in this arena, we are beginning to think about how the next cohort of fellows might accelerate work on climate change. With D^3, getting the labs up and running will be key. For our educational programs, we’re now ready to leverage the space we’ve created for curricular innovation in the Required Curriculum and to look at how we might better support entrepreneurs in the Elective Curriculum. The shift to shared governance across HBS Online and Executive Education opens the door to closer collaboration in developing professional learning opportunities.

Progress toward digital transformation will move us closer to the goal of lifelong learning. Continued experimentation with our hybrid learning platform will allow us to seamlessly deliver synchronous and asynchronous online learning. In short, I see the coming year as an opportunity to move many initiatives forward; we must plant the seeds now to ensure that HBS remains at the forefront of management education and practice for future generations.

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