Vlerick sets great store by sustainability. We’ve been doing it for years, on all our campuses. “Sustainability is sometimes a question of one far-reaching decision, such as a heat pump or a new boiler, but equally often it involves a series of small, consistent interventions and sustained efforts.” Interview with our operations manager Steven Clemminck.

We are living in an ever more globalised, complex and digital world that requires a different kind of leader. How do we make sense of the global socio-economic landscape? How can we grasp the opportunities created by new technologies? And how can businesses also take societal challenges into account and deliver a positive impact on the community? In order to answer these questions, Vlerick Business School is launching a new Global Executive MBA programme in the spring of 2020. We asked Professor Martin Weiss (Programme Director Global Executive MBA) and Yolanda Habets (Head of MBA Programmes) to talk us through the details of this immersive journey in leadership transformation.

The Board is extremely proud to announce that Frans Muller, CEO of Ahold Delhaize and member of the Vlerick board since October 2017, has accepted to become Chairman. With Frans, the school has another non-Belgian leader of a large international company as chairperson who brings a passion for education and particular experience in consumer goods, digital, customer delight and international food retail market.

Many leaders find it difficult to respond constructively to failure. After all, if we are no longer allowed to blame an employee when something goes wrong, how can we ensure that employees will still do their best to perform as well as possible? Although many organisations consider learning from failure important, very few of them actually take a good approach to it. Why? Because most managers look at failure the wrong way.

Professor of Human Resources Management Dirk Buyens does not regard the changes prompted by digitisation as in any way troubling. ‘We have to learn to understand the reasons why employees may or may not be engaging.’

Distance learning is not a new concept. But as time goes on, technologies continue to evolve and broaden capacity, ever improving the standard of online learning. The best online MBA programmes offered today are arguably just as good as an on-campus MBA, and can prove a better fit for a number of students. In today’s fast-paced working world, online MBAs offer flexibility and diversity that benefit both Schools and students, says Professor Steve Muylle.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is finding its way into various sectors and domains. It is essential that CFOs look into the possibilities of this technology as well. Professor Kristof Stouthuysen explains why.

COOs increasingly operate on strategic levels, translating external developments into their organisations and implementing necessary internal changes. However, in practice, these continuous changes raise dilemmas. This balance between innovation and continuity is the topic of conversation of a new advisory board in Management Scope magazine. Three Dutch COOs and Professor of Leadership and Coaching, Katleen De Stobbeleir, together devise six best practices to allow problem-free navigation between innovation and continuity.

In early May, Professor Mathieu Luypaert presented the results of the M&A Monitor. The large audience, of course, included our three Prime Foundation Partners, who are active in the Centre for Mergers, Acquisitions & Buy-outs. A perfect opportunity to touch base about their partnership.

Last year, the Indian Institute of Management Technology (IMT) searched a strategic partner in Europe for developing a Post Graduate Degree on Management focused on Banking and Financial Services. That they found Vlerick was no coincidence, as is apparent from our conversation with Professor Asish K. Bhattacharyya, Director of IMT, and Marion Debruyne, Dean, Patrick De Greve, General Director, and David Veredas, Professor of Financial Markets at Vlerick.