In line with its strategic planning that includes internationalization as one of its main pillars, Insper set up the International Advisory Board (IAB) in 2018. The group has nine members, in addition to chairman Michael Perlman, who is also a member of the institution’s Board of Directors. The members have three-year terms, as well as academic experience in countries such as Israel, Portugal, New Zealand, Chile, Venezuela, the United States and the United Kingdom.

 

The IAB forms a triad of support, assessment and advisory bodies for Insper’s management, while also comprising the Internal Evaluation Commission (CPA, for its acronym in Portuguese), governed by the requirements of the Brazilian Ministry of Education for higher education institutions, and the External Evaluation Commission (CEA, for its acronym in Portuguese), formed by professionals from different areas and Insper alumni. The CEA and the IAB get together once a year.

 

“The IAB was set up to provide Insper with a global perspective for assessing and talking about the institution’s strategic topics,” explains Irineu Gianesi, Dean of Academic Affairs at Insper. “That perspective is essential for any institution that strives for excellence, and particularly for those that are not in a highly competitive environment, as is the case in the United States and Europe. It makes it possible to share best practices at a level consistent with Insper’s vision of setting the global benchmark when it comes to teaching and generating knowledge about Brazil.”

 

Fruitful debate

 

The latest meeting took place at Insper, in São Paulo, on October 20th. “These are highly relevant meetings that favor in-depth discussions to bring in new perspectives for the development of Insper, both as an institution and from an academic standpoint”, says Ana Carolina Oliveira de Souza, coordinator of Insper’s international relations area.

 

“This year we had the participation of all members, who brought in ideas that will have a profound impact on Insper”, she points out. “We aim to set the benchmark internationally, and for that we need those new perspectives from experts from other regions.”

 

Previous meetings were held in person in 2018 and 2019, and entirely online in 2020 and 2021. “During the pandemic, the meetings were streamed online, which didn’t make them any less valuable, but it imposed restrictions, particularly due to the duration as it was difficult to coordinate different time zones”, Gianesi explains. “In 2022, we were back face-to-face, even though three of the members were present online, which allowed for much better interaction, both between the IAB and Insper’s leadership and among the members themselves.” In 2023, the event should extend over two days.

 

The October 2022 meeting addressed three important topics, the director says. One of them was the research strategy, “addressing topics such as research-teaching integration, the assessment of the technical work of the faculty, and the assessment of research in an integrated institution such as Insper, which has no separate schools or departments.”

 

The other one was governance for the future, “with a focus on appropriate models for an institution that is growing and becoming a university because of its diverse areas of activity, but with no separation between schools or departments”. Finally, the attendees talked about curriculum innovation, while “particularly focusing on the outline of skills to be developed for Business Administration and Economics graduates to be prepared to work on the 2030 market”.

 

Prominent names

 

In addition to Michael Perlman, who is also a member of the Global Advisory Council of the London Business School and a Fellow Commoner of Christ’s College, in Cambridge, as well as counselor to Albert Einstein Hospital since 1974, the other IAB members are Alfonso Gomez Morales (member of the Innovation Center at the Universidad Católica de Chile), Dominic Houlder (Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School) and Francis Patrick Kelly (Professor Emeritus of Mathematics of Systems at the University of Cambridge).

 

Also in attendance were Gary A. Giamartino (PhD in Social and Organizational Psychology at Vanderbilt University and an expert on Business Transitions), Ian O. Williamson (Dean of The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine and a world-renowned expert in the field of human resources management), and João Amaro de Matos (Vice Rector of NOVA University Lisbon).

 

Rounding off the list are Jikyeong Kang (the tenth person and first woman to chair the Asian Institute of Management), María Helena Jaén (Chair Distinguished Professor at the School of Management at the Universidad de Los Andes) and Moshe Zviran (incumbent of the Isaac Gilinsky Chair of Entrepreneurship, Technology, Innovation and Management at Tel Aviv University).