Deepa Krishnan

Creating Business Leaders for the World of Tomorrow

Given the enormous reach and impact of global corporations, it is quite clear that corporate leaders have a big role to play in shaping the world of tomorrow. If we are to solve the problems of ecological destruction, staggering inequality and chronic poverty, business leaders must become messiahs of change, championing and directing their companies’ journey to create an equitable and sustainable world.As educators, we need to ask ourselves what role business schools should play in this journey towards corporate sustainability. What type of business school curriculum can help produce future corporate leaders, who have the courage and the empathy to make a difference in the world?If we introspect a little, we can see that business schools today have become simply an extension of corporate hiring departments. Rather than being centers of thought leadership, which encourage managers to think, to question business models, and to derive meaningful paths for themselves, business school curriculum seems to simply reflect corporate hiring priorities. Clearly, there is an urgent need to completely rethink business education, particularly in a world where poverty and inequality persists.