Insper announces their new president, Marcelo Knobel. From March 1st, he will take over the position from Marcos Lisboa, who has been ahead of Insper for ten years and recently announced his departure. Committed to excellence in education, Knobel brings the experience of being former Unicamp’s dean (2017 – 2021) at one of the most significant Brazilian universities. At Insper, he states he intends to develop areas such as technology, science, and sustainability and bring new quality research and teaching models.
Brazilian physicist born in Argentina, 54-year-old Knobel graduated in 1989 from Campinas State University. He began his professional path there 28 years ago, acting as a Physics professor since 2008. Throughout his career, he helped create the Unicamp Science Exploratory Campus and Sustainable Campus, an initiative that promotes energy and water saving. In addition, he works at the Labjor, a Brazilian and Latin American reference center for formation and studies in the scientific and cultural telling.
During his management at Insper, Knobel foresees his engagement with actions in which education and science help positively transform the country. “There shall be quality, social preoccupation, research, social engagement, fundamental roles of a good university, and to educate people in the best way possible naturally.” Insper’s path, according to him, is to expand its range nationally and internationally, becoming a university with reachability never seen in Brazil without losing the purpose of being a non-profit institution.
Marcos Lisboa leaves the position after a decade of many accomplishments in the institution. “10 years of Insper. I had the privilege of working with many people who are passionate about Insper and its mission. We got to build an excellence and innovation culture. It is very nice that someone so qualified arrives to pick up the baton and do even better”, states Lisboa.
During the last decade, Insper had leaped from a business school to an institution acting in several knowledge areas, by creating Engineering, Law, and Computing Science programs, all with practical and transversal learning proposals. Graduation had grown with new programs such as Public Policy Management, Data Journalism, Data Science, Digital Transformation, Social Urbanism, et cetera, and an expansion of Executive Education programs. Research centers and professorships were created, and the stricto sensu level was incremented with Doctor’s Degree, in addition to a Master’s Degree. International partnerships were multiplied, and Insper became among the few less than 100 business schools accredited with the market’s most respected seals, the so-called triple crown in business education. The institution also reinforced its scholarship program and created a scholarship students’ residence (the Fox Burrow).
Insper’s Founder and president of its Board of Directors, Claudio Haddad, agrees with many of Knobel’s ideas and plans to develop best educational practices supported by top teaching institutions’ international models. Haddad says, “Insper always seeks to place high-capacity personnel to follow its goal of revolutionizing education.”