How can business schools keep pace with the rate of change in industry and society, the requirements of employers and students, and create education programmes that cater to those needs as well as those for the future?

We spoke to James Eteen, Academic Director of the MSc in Management (MiM) at Imperial College Business School to learn more about his role.

Introduce yourself and your role

I’m a Senior Teaching Fellow in Strategy at Imperial College Business School and Academic Director of the MSc in Management (MiM). I’ve been teaching postgraduates at international business schools since leaving EY in 2014 after several years as a Partner in the consulting service line. I started teaching at Imperial as a visiting lecturer, joining the faculty in 2019, and have enjoyed teaching MSc and MBA courses. Last year I took on the leadership role for our MiM programmes.

Prior to transitioning to a teaching career, I spent 18 years working at large firms; initially at Andersen Consulting (Accenture) in the mid-1990s, then EY, where I was a Partner.

I’m an active independent consultant and board advisor when time permits! Over a 28-year consulting career, I’ve advised C-level executives and senior leaders at multinationals, mid-cap and private equity firms. My areas of expertise include strategy, M&A, organisational change, commercial performance improvement and business turnaround.

My background in consulting enables me to bring case studies into the classroom based on my project experiences. I’m a firm believer in applied learning that maximises our students’ readiness for demanding graduate roles, whatever their chosen profession.

Why do you think a MiM is such a valuable commodity in today’s business world? Why might an applicant opt for a MiM over another programme?

Many of the world’s leading global business schools offer a MiM as a flagship programme. In Europe, and more recently the US, the MiM degree has become a well-established route to career success for applicants with typically up to two years of work experience.

At Imperial, we see many of our graduating students gaining  employment at prestigious firms, notably in management consulting, finance and technology. Specialist Master’s degrees cater for students seeking to learn deep skills in one particular domain (for example, Marketing, Business Analytics or Entrepreneurship). A MiM degree, by contrast, is designed to expose students to a broad set of functional domains and to help students develop the ability to work across those domains. In many ways, the purpose of a MiM degree is for students to build the early foundation for eventual leadership positions in business.

One of the features of most leading MiM programmes is a core curriculum (covering the foundational building blocks of business) followed by an opportunity to carve out a specialism through elective modules. This means students don’t forgo the opportunity to learn deep skills in areas of interest.

I believe students from a MiM degree graduate with a “T”-shaped skills profile. The top (horizontal) part of the letter “T” represents the breadth of business skills developed, and the vertical part represents deep skills learned through chosen elective modules which are by nature more specialised. The Imperial MiM offers several elective concentrations, including Strategy & Innovation, Finance, Marketing and Management & Operations. Students can elect to choose modules from once concentration or from across several depending on their learning priorities and career aspirations.

What are the core skills/competencies that MiM students and graduates need to succeed? How does the revamped programme at Imperial College Business School build these?

Success in the careers typically chosen by MiM graduates requires them to master several core competencies: adaptive and resilient leadership, complex problem-solving, cross-functional teaming, and the ability to make an impact in their communities and to society at large to name but a few.

There isn’t a standard template for a MiM degree, and you will see business schools emphasising different elements. I like to think that collectively, the schools offering a MiM are educating and shaping tomorrow’s leaders at an early stage in their lives.

Employers tell us that they want our graduates to be able to effectively influence people across cultures and business functions. Employers also want our graduates to be willing to embrace entrepreneurial thinking and take calculated risks, experimenting and iterating. To that end, a MiM degree should offer a diverse classroom environment and it should deliver integrative learning experiences that allow students to “connect the dots” across the individual modules taught.

The Imperial MiM offers students an entrepreneurial challenge, led by experienced faculty that are deeply immersed in the start-up ecosystem of academic research or practice. Teams of students develop an idea (as a solution to a problem) from concept through prototyping to an investment pitch to a panel of judges.

Students can also opt to engage in an immersive software-driven simulation of an early stage venture. It requires teams of students to explore people, planet and profit trade-offs in a safe environment, designed to facilitate experimentation and risk-taking.

Finally, our alumni have shared with us the importance of choice in shaping their learning journeys to support their career ambitions as well as the importance of networking more broadly. Every year the elective portfolio in the Business School is reviewed and updated in line with current business needs. Many of our elective modules are shared with students from other MSc programmes and some from the MBA which adds to the diversity of the learning environment.

Why do you enjoy delivering this programme at Imperial College Business School? What is the best part of your role?

There are two things that I enjoy about my role as the Academic Director of the Imperial MiM. The first is teaching on the programme. My work as a consultant enables me to share stories and experiences, bringing practical and up-to-date case studies into the classroom. I love practical, applied teaching methods.

In addition to the simulation mentioned earlier, I oversee the consulting projects that students can elect to undertake as their capstone experience as the final part of their degree. Student teams engage with external clients, taking full responsibility for scoping, managing the client and delivering successful outcomes for a range of company sponsors.

Secondly, and the best part of my role, is spending time with our students outside of lectures, listening to their experiences and career aspirations, as well as discussing ways they can sharpen their skills and knowledge. The culmination of this interactive journey is graduation – always an emotional event. Celebrating our graduates’ achievements since finishing their MiM journey always makes me feel proud. It also leads me to reflect on the important role that our institution plays as a shaper of future business leaders, and that is highly rewarding.

What are your hopes for the first graduating class of the updated MiM programme?

At a basic level, I hope our graduates achieve positions in the working world that interest and excite them. I also hope that they embrace the principle of lifelong learning, continuing to grow and adapt as they progress in their careers. Building on that, I aspire for our graduates to be the best leaders they can be, whatever career path they choose.

There is no doubt that powerful technologies in the workplace, not least AI, will lead to further transformation of business practices. I would like to see our graduates at the forefront of transformational change, demonstrating the courage to lead, embracing the opportunities (and of course tackling the inevitable issues), with confidence and resilience.

Finally, I would like to see our graduates making a positive contribution to society through their endeavours. It is imperative that today’s environmental and social issues are tackled, these are systemic in nature and there are no easy solutions. I’d like to think that the MiM has enhanced our graduates’ understanding of these complex challenges and imbued them with the knowledge, skills, motivation and confidence to try to make a difference however they can.

How might the programme further evolve again in future?

Our graduates are expected to be able to navigate ambiguity and pick up new digital skills quickly in the workplace. The MiM programme already has modules that require students to use machine learning and predictive analytics to tackle complex issues in the field of strategy, and digital skills bootcamps. In addition to the academic modules, we want to take these further in the future by widening our digital and professional skills provision so our graduates can hit the floor running once they start working.

I’m also keen to expand our shared elective portfolio to further enable our students to personalise their learning journey. I see huge potential for us to broaden the programme’s touchpoints across Imperial, beyond the Business School, developing applied projects with the faculties of science, engineering and medicine.

I also see greater potential to collaborate externally with companies, NGOs and other stakeholders in tackling the systemic global challenges highlighted by the UN SDGs. These experiences can have a profound impact on students and will often define their learning journey through the programme, teaching them skills and values that will remain with them throughout their future careers.

For additional insights, trends and perspectives on Masters Programmes in business education, visit the conversation here.