From boardrooms, business schools, Andalusia’s olive groves and international institutions, the 2026 EFMD Annual Conference in Seville returned repeatedly to a single question: what should management education stand for?

Over three days, it became less a prompt than a sustained inquiry, tested across disciplines, sectors, and institutional perspectives.

Hosted by San Telmo Business School from 7 to 9 June, the conference brought together more than 550 business school leaders, faculty, corporate partners and members of the EFMD community. The setting in Seville offered more than a backdrop. Spain’s civic and institutional history, along with its position between Europe, Latin America, and Africa, framed a discussion of responsibility, authority, and purpose in management education.

Opening reflections: Stability, authority, and purpose

EFMD President Eric Cornuel opened the conference by challenging the assumption that management education is primarily about adaptation. Change, he emphasised, is constant. The deeper issue is whether the frameworks used to interpret it remain adequate.

“If the rules are less stable, then what matters is not only what we teach, but what we stand for,” Eric said.

Values, in this framing, are not supplementary but constitutive. He also addressed artificial intelligence, noting that it alters access to knowledge without diminishing the need for judgment. If anything, it intensifies it.

“If answers become easy to obtain, then the ability to ask the right questions becomes more important, and if technology becomes more powerful, then the need for responsible leadership becomes more urgent,” added Eric.

Antonio García de Castro, Chairman of San Telmo Business School, described the institution’s guiding conviction in direct terms: better people, better companies, better society. He situated San Telmo within a long-standing EFMD relationship, focusing on executive education, particularly through its work with senior leaders in the agri-food sector.

José Antonio Boccherini, Director of the FOODepartment, outlined an applied model grounded in continuous engagement with CEOs and a steady production of cases designed to support decision-making under uncertainty.

What corporations expect from graduates

The first plenary, moderated by conference Chair Sankar Sivarajah of Kingston Business School, brought corporate and academic perspectives into direct dialogue.

Ana Callol of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners described leadership situations defined by incomplete information, limited time, and high consequence. In her view, the most persistent gap among graduates is not technical knowledge but the capacity to make decisions under pressure.

“This is a real job management does today, and we are not educated for this,” said Ana Callol, General Manager, Iberian Business Unit, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Callol set out three layers of capability now expected in organisations: technical foundations, applied judgement in uncertain conditions, and a human core defined by responsibility, ethical reasoning, and leadership of people rather than systems.

“Technical skills may get you in the door, but what makes you valuable is human judgment,” Callol added.

Carl Rhodes of the University of Technology Sydney offered a different emphasis. In his account, business schools can no longer maintain the fiction of political neutrality. Citing his forthcoming work with Alison Pullen, he pointed out that these institutions already participate in political and cultural contestation, whether acknowledged or not.

“Business schools are already political institutions. The question is whether we engage with that reality democratically and responsibly,” said Carl Rhodes, Professor of Business and Society, University of Technology Sydney.

He also linked this to wider tensions around expertise, authority, and democratic legitimacy.

AI and the purpose of education

Moderated by Mark Smith, Dean of Programmes at emlyon Business School, a structured debate on artificial intelligence highlighted contrasting interpretations of its implications for management education, with the two debaters intentionally taking opposing positions.

Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou of Carnegie Mellon University argued that AI should be integrated as a core component of learning rather than treated as an external tool. She described an approach in which students work with AI as a partner in reasoning, testing assumptions and refining arguments. In her view, educators’ task is to ensure that thinking remains central to the process.

Renata Schoeman of the University of Stellenbosch challenged the speed and framing of adoption. Her concern was not with AI itself, but with the risk that efficiency becomes a proxy for learning. If outputs are mistaken for understanding, the educational function of business schools risks being weakened rather than strengthened. She emphasised the need to preserve critical judgement and ethical reflection as central outcomes of management education.

Scholarship, faculty, and institutional design

Day two opened with a discussion on the future of academic work, moderated by Wilfred Mijnhardt of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

Mijnhardt questioned the sustainability of the traditional academic model, in which individuals are expected to excel simultaneously in research, teaching, and external engagement. He proposed a more distributed structure in which roles are deliberately differentiated, allowing institutions to build coherent strengths rather than relying on individual overextension.

Cristina Fernández Tesoro of IE University emphasised three responsibilities for educators: students, institutions, and society. She highlighted the importance of developing students’ judgment, strengthening institutional capacity for AI literacy, and engaging with global governance discussions.

“We can be at the table with many people—we can bring the corporate world, we can bring governance, we can bring civil society,” said Cristina Fernández Tesoro, IE University.

Andrew Jack of the Financial Times offered a journalistic perspective on the current moment. He noted that AI presents a distinctive challenge to traditional methods of assessing critical thinking, particularly in disciplines where written synthesis has long served as a primary indicator of analytical ability. This, he underscored, requires reconsideration of assessment practices rather than incremental adjustment.

“Is AI a strategic tool or a threat? I’m on the fence on this,” said Andrew Jack, FT.  “I mean, I would argue it’s both, it’s both fundamentally disruptive, but also impossible to ignore.”

Maarten Renkema of the University of Twente highlighted the implications for human resources and organisational design, particularly regarding workload distribution and academic sustainability.

Rethinking the purpose of management education

Andrew J. Hoffman of the University of Michigan provided one of the most challenging interventions of the conference. He pointed out that contemporary capitalism in Western economies is producing systemic failures, particularly in relation to inequality and environmental degradation.

“The key question of our day today is not about fitting climate change into the business curriculum, but asking what is the state of the market today,” said Hoffman. “To fix a system breakdown, you have to fix the system that’s causing it. I am not making an argument for socialism, I am making an argument for amending capitalism as we have it right now.”

In his view, business schools are not external observers but active participants in these dynamics. He questioned existing curricular structures, including the separation of ethics from core management education, and raised concerns about the behavioural tendencies encouraged in competitive admissions processes.

His argument was not for abandoning business education, but for a reassessment of its foundations. He called for curricula and institutional incentives that are more explicitly aligned with long-term social and environmental conditions rather than short-term financial outcomes.

Breakout sessions: Applied questions across sectors

Discussions on artificial intelligence and human capability focused on the continued importance of practical judgement in organisations where technical tools are increasingly accessible. A session on internationalisation examined how accreditation standards are being interpreted across regions amid geopolitical uncertainty.

The FOODepartment session considered volatility in the agri-food sector and the role of executive education in supporting decision-making under pressure. Other sessions addressed longevity and demographic change, student wellbeing, and the implications of rising stress and polarisation in classroom settings.

A second round of sessions included discussions on decarbonisation, demand trends in management education, AI and assessment design, and the role of executive education in supporting business owners.

Recognition and institutional milestones

The annual awards ceremony highlighted developments across EFMD’s accreditation portfolio. BSIS was recognised for reaching its 100th institution, and the Centre for Human and Emotional Leadership (CHEL) was formally introduced, with a stated focus on leadership as a fundamentally human practice rather than a purely technical one.

The conference dinner at Hacienda San Miguel de Montelirio provided an informal setting for continued discussion, with participants reflecting on the breadth of issues raised over the preceding days.

Closing reflections and looking ahead

In his concluding remarks, Sankar Sivarajah noted that the conference had produced not only answers but a sharper set of questions. Across sessions, recurring themes included responsibility in management education, the role of judgment under uncertainty, and the implications of technological change for teaching and research.

We extend our deepest gratitude to all who attended, including the speakers and steering committee members, for their contributions to making this event one of our most successful yet. We also express a special thank you to our strategic partner, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), and our gracious host, San Telmo Business School, whose unwavering support was instrumental.

We are immensely grateful for the exceptionally diverse and engaged EFMD community, which once again joined forces to debate, envision, and chart a roadmap towards a future-proof transformation in impactful business education.

We are delighted to announce that Kozminski University will host the 2027 EFMD Annual Conference in Warsaw, Poland. We strive to keep the spirit high and eagerly anticipate welcoming you all next year. Please keep an eye on our events page for registration information and further updates.

A throwback of the live reactions from the 2026 EFMD Annual Conference is available on our X feed. Discover photos and reflections from our conference chair, Sankar Sivarajah. 

For additional insights, announcements and perspectives, visit the conversation on Business Education.