30 years of achievement and building a foundation for global preeminence
Dominic Barton
Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
Tsinghua SEM Advisory Board member, Global Managing Director of McKinsey and Co. Dominic Barton
President Chen, Dean Qian, faculty, students and fellow guests, it is truly an honour to be here for today’s celebration. It is a fantastic milestone for the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management and I congratulate all of you here for being part of that journey.
In my remarks today, I want to talk about two topics. One is to highlight some of the incredible successes that the School has achieved during its thirty-year history and the factors that have driven that success. The second is to describe a few of the trends that I see creating both challenges and opportunities in the field of economics and management education over the next decade.
Historical success
The School of Economics and Management here at Tsinghua was established in 1984, incidentally the same year that I graduated from college in Canada. A great deal has changed since then. The idea of a management education outside of the United States was still relatively new and the vision of this school was only beginning to be realized.
Looking back, it is remarkable to see what has been accomplished at the School in just thirty years.
Under the leadership of Dean Zhu, you have built an institution well ahead of its time. The decisions to push for teaching in English and launch dual-degree programs with leading business schools worldwide such as INSEAD and MIT have positioned this school as a truly international school. You have also led the way in education reform, pioneering undergraduate general education at Tsinghua and being among the first group of schools in China to offer MBA, EMBA and post-EMBA programs.
Today, Tsinghua is globally recognized as a leader in economics and management education. The undergraduate program attracts a quarter of the top individual students and a sixth of the top ten students from each province in China. Fifty-eight percent of your EMBA students are CEOs or General Managers from influential corporations. I have personally met many of them and they are most impressive. The joint EMBA program with INSEAD is ranked second in the world.
I believe that five key factors have been responsible for the School’s success. First, you have taken it upon yourselves to learn from the best, emulating best practices from leading business schools worldwide. Second, you have been proactive in anticipating trends in China’s economic development and adjusting your programs to better fit that context, for example by establishing a network of research centers in entrepreneurship, healthcare management, retail and other areas. Third, you have recognized untapped opportunities early – leapfrog opportunities – for instance in the EMBA space, and innovated to meet that demand. Fourth, you have successfully balanced the interests of government, while adapting to the needs of the private sector through incremental reform. Finally, Tsinghua’s “can-do attitude” has ensured excellence in executing against your goals.
Future trends
I now want to talk about some of the trends and the disruption that we are seeing in higher education. I strongly believe that we are living a period of historic change and the next twenty to thirty years will be significant from a two to three hundred year time horizon. The rise of Asia and Africa, rapid technological advances and demographic shifts will disrupt education systems at all levels. Facing this scale of upheaval, I believe that we are moving towards a more challenging “winner-take all” environment, but one where those institutions that can move quickly will have a distinct advantage and access to unprecedented opportunities.
First, education is becoming increasingly globalized and commoditized, as the number of full-time MBA programs globally has more than doubled in the past ten years. Universities today are not only competing with others in their region, but worldwide – for students, faculty and funding. Five leading global business schools in the US and Europe have opened more than a dozen international satellite campuses in recognition of this trend. Tsinghua has to capitalize on its position in the world’s most dynamic economy to continue to attract the best students and faculty globally. I see the fact that a great majority of assistant professors at the School now have overseas PhD degrees as a very positive sign and an indication that international focus continues to be a priority.
I also see entrepreneurship becoming increasingly important, as private enterprises will drive more and more of China’s growth over the next decade. The proportion of university graduates in China going into private enterprise increased from 36% in 2007 to 45% in 2012 and the percentage of graduates pursuing entrepreneurship doubled over the same period.While Tsinghua’s functional excellence will continue to be an area of strength, more focus on entrepreneurship is needed – a trend that we are seeing at other business schools around the world. In the US for instance, the number of undergraduate entrepreneurship courses offered has quadrupled over the past ten years and the number of students taking at least one of those classes has increased sixty-fold. At Tsinghua, initiatives such as the x-lab are a great start to integrate the entire university more into the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Finally, the very nature of business education is changing. Online learning platforms are expanding rapidly and top business schools worldwide are beginning to explore initiatives in this area. In the past year alone, the number of students enrolled in massive online open courses increased ten times. The line between classroom and workplace is also becoming blurred, as students are now looking to learn what is most immediately relevant to their careers. In some cases, they may turn to more on-the-job training through a blended learning model and lifelong learning instead of the traditional model of general degree programs. Tsinghua has always been on the cutting edge of innovation and there will be an opportunity in the coming years to shape economics and management education – like Tsinghua SEM did in 1984 for the last era – and what it means to be a modern school of economics and management.
Let me conclude by saying that you have a chance to build something very special here and become a truly distinctive global school. The next decade is ripe with opportunities in economics and management education and I believe that Tsinghua is uniquely positioned to capture them.
You are located in an iconic university in an absolutely vital country in the world with a prominent base of alumni and the best science, engineering, arts and design programs in China. You have the finest undergraduate students in the country, a sterling reputation and outstanding leadership. The past thirty years have truly been an incredible journey, but your greatest years are still ahead.
Thank you.
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