A peer to peer discussion with the Dean of The American University in Cairo School of Business and Board Chair of AACSB International.
“It's nice to be part of an institution that has an impact on society, that the impact is not just within campus, but on society and on the region at large,” stated Kamel.
In Episode 47 of Deans Counsel, Professor Kamel joins moderators Dave Ikenberry and Ken Kring and shares a remarkably interesting set of key observations and helpful advice, ranging from an international perspective on impacting global society to his unique view of the role of executive education.
“We look at executive education as an extremely important link to the market experience that should be brought into the classroom.” Offered Kamel.
Professor Kamel also shares how they are enhancing the student experience through creative outreach. And finally, Professor Kamel offers his guidance for opening lines of communication and nurturing key relationships with faculty and staff.
“If we ask them to drive change, we need to practice what we preach.” Said Kamel.
To learn more about a truly seasoned academic leader discusses the changes taking place at The American University in Cairo School of Business, listen to the full episode:
Photos courtesy of Vanderbilt
Transcript:
Dave 0:13
Welcome to Deans Council, a podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists, Ken Kring, Jim Ellis and Dave eichenberry, engage in conversation with highly accomplished deans and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Deans face in one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy. In today's episode, we are treated to a fascinating discussion with Sharif Kamel, Dean of the Business School at the American University in Cairo. And like most of us, Sharif has spent most of his adult life at just one institution, the American University in Cairo, or AUC his journey first started as a student, then later, in 1992 he rejoined as an adjunct faculty member in 2000 his span of reach grew further and led him into various leadership roles within executive education. Was only eight years later that he was chosen to serve as Dean of the Business School, serving from 2009 to 2014 before choosing to step down from that role. Interestingly, campus leadership returned to Sharif three years later and invited him to reapply for the same job, taking on a second term. Today, he continues to serve in this role, and recently was named Chair of AACSB in this conversation, we hear and learn from Sharif a remarkably interesting set of key observations and helpful advice, ranging from impacting global society his view of the role of executive education, enhancing the student experience through creative outreach and key tips For thinking and acting thoughtfully about opening lines of communication and nurturing key relationships with faculty and staff. This is to name but a few key themes we hear in our conversation today. We hope you enjoy this episode from a truly seasoned academic leader
Ken 2:16
so Sharif Kamal, welcome. We're delighted to have you here today to join Dean's Council. For those of you who don't know Sharif's background is both distinguished and distinguishable, not only the newly elected Chair of AACSB and long serving board member there, but also twice the dean at American University Cairo, with significant transformation under his leadership. So Sharif, before joining AUC, we know you were with the regional it Institute and managed training, the training department of the cabinet of Egypt for the information and Decision Support Center. You know your experience across public, private, non governmental sectors, working really, not only across all sectors, but you've been a guest speaker and taught and virtually every continent in the world. So extraordinary experience. Broad gaged, we'd love to have you maybe just start by talking a little about your journey and sort of how you got to where you are and how you return to where you are.
Sherif Kamel 3:36
First of all, thank you, Ken and Dave for having me. It's a three pleasure to be part of the dean's council podcast series. Well, my journey. So my journey started off after graduating from the very school I work at now, AUC School of Business. I worked in the government. I've always believed that the most important asset in any society is people. So I started off working in training. And if you look at my trajectory over the first 15 years of my of my work experience, it's been working for the government and for a civil society in training, sort of a government officials, newly grads, people want to venture into entrepreneurship on different areas my background, as is technology management. But the training I was part of and held over many, many years were very muchified in business management that lasted for about 15 years. During that time, I was approached by AUC to start teaching that as an adjunct, and of course, I would not have let this opportunity, you know, get away without really capturing it. So I started teaching at AUC in 1992 as an adult, and that lasted for about eight years, when I joined full time in 2000 and since then, I've been part of AUC still looking always at the intersection of people, innovation, technology and data. I believe that that intersection can take any society to a different level we now talk about. Of AI and digital transformations and the light back in the early 80s and mid 80s, it was still, you know, scratching the surface, but you could tell that with business education that is tech enabled and tech driven, future entrepreneurs and leaders and policy makers and change agents society can go a long way. So when I moved to AUC in 2000 of course, they looked at my my resume. They knew me, and they knew what I was doing in the government, which is sort of being charged or training. So the first thing they asked me to do as an administration was to handle executive education. So just two years after I joined AUC in 2002 I was director. I was actually associate director for the management center, which is the executive education arm of the school, because the faculty director was actually the dean. I had that position for for six years, and then I was appointed Associate Dean for executive education. And I promise you, being the Dean was not even in my mind. I loved what I was doing. I was interacting with different stakeholders in society. I was doing my research, again in technology and technology management, and then one thing to elect to another. And there was an opening to for the deanship position, which I applied to in 2000 and in 2009 and actually 2008 and I got the job in 2009 and I was there until 2000 we had a plan, and that plan was mostly executed. But I also always like to think of that while we're looking at our professional life, the personal elements are extremely important, and in that regard, family counts. My family actually moved to Canada, 2010 I was going back and forth between Montreal seven a year, between 2010 2014 and I thought enough is enough, so I actually decided to step down and move to Canada. When I spent time with my with my family, was called upon again to AUC for different roles, which I was honored to deliver. But I thought that the association of the school, with the position team was was was done. I think I worked my colleagues, and we've achieved a lot during that period. Of course, we are. We have our challenges which I would talk to to cover those challenges as well. But one thing led to another. I was approaching him in 2017 to apply for the job. My initial impression was, you know, in don't go back again and allow me to say this. And my official response to to my boss, the provost, was, thank you, but no thank you, because I've never seen parking movie, part two of a movie that is better than part one, except in The Godfather city. So this was my official response to both President and Provost that you know what, they kept on pushing me to apply. They said, you don't have the job. You need to apply for it, and then you go through the drill and see what happens. So anyway, long story short, went back to the school in 2018 and I'm still there. It's it's nice to be part of an institution that has an impact on society, that the impact is not just within campus, but on society at large and on the region at large. As I said, there were some opportunities. There were some challenges. Obviously, in the second spell we had in the Egypt context, back to back delegation in the in the currency globally, we had the pandemic. We had a change of leadership at the university. So it's a it's like a different school with different sort of context. But the one thing that always kept me thinking is, how can we prepare those next gen business leaders, entrepreneurs and policy makers to make a difference in society? The breed that we're working with today is completely different than 15 years ago, given the disruptions that are taking place, again, the global changes that are taking place. But again, I like to look at the glass half full with all the disruptions that are taking place, that are always, always opportunities for innovation.
Ken 8:55
Sharif, talk with us some about what vision Did you portray in 220, 17 that convinced everyone, including yourself, that there was a validity to the sequel of your of your deanship?
Sherif Kamel 9:14
Sure, and let me just go back for 30 seconds to as I sign. SK, so. SK, 1.0 it was all about accreditation and increasing our global footprint. So SK 2.0 which started in 2018 was beyond accreditation. So we have accreditation. We've got the sort of triple crown. We're happy about it. Continuously improving. All that is good. What else? How can we improve beyond the national and regional borders? How we can increase our corporate footprints? How we can have the model of a business school that is usually placed in a region that is not looked at at the same level playing field as other regions in the world? It how we can have impactful collaborative through partnerships with different business schools and higher education institutions around the world. Let me just give you a bit of a background. So AUC was established back in 1919 so it's been around for 105 years, the School of Business, while the rules for the school of business started back in 1947 so we've been around for still 77 years. So for the most of that period, cruising down to eight decades, we were, in many ways, and I see it in a humble way, one of the top destinations in the region in Africa for business education. But from people in that region. I wanted to change that because I truly believe in diversity. Our students need to be present with other students from around the world, not necessarily just from our region and vice versa, to be better exposed to what's happening in the global environment. So that was the focus of my second term, having having introduced many programs in the first spell, the one thing that I thought could be on a game changer moving forward, or that is very much common in North America, somehow common in Europe, but surely not common in my part of the world, is landing a hefty endowment and naming school. So these were the two priorities during the second spell. So what's happening in these two elements, six, seven years into the sort of the second spell? We are not where we want to be when it comes to the global footprint, but we are miles ahead from where we were 15 or 10 years ago when it comes to the to and I can get into more details about it, involving, by the way, faculty and students across different disciplines. And let me just on this point, share the three themes that this the programs, whether degree programs or executive education or community developments, are all packed under the first is entrepreneurship and innovation. The second is responsible business and the third is inclusive economic development. So under these three things, I should say most, if not all, of our programs and activities and offerings fall under when it comes to the second point, which is the name of the school. We started that journey over a year ago. And I should say we're heading in the right direction. We're not there yet. And with something like this, given it's it doesn't come as part of the natural DNA of this region. I will not talk more about it until we reach the finish line, but I'm extremely positive about the developers that happened over the last year, and maybe next year 2025, will bring some good news.
Dave 13:01
Interesting. Sure. If I was wondering if you could touch on a little bit about some of the cultural similarities, but also some of the cultural distinctions between a leading a business a US, like business school and and where you're in the institution you have today. I'm presuming there's a tremendous amount of similarities, but if you could compare and contrast that a little bit, that would be that would be interesting to hear your perspective.
Sherif Kamel 13:28
Thank you, Dave, interesting, interesting question. And there's a lot to say in that, in that regard. And I would start with with the similarities you look at the generation college, Generation Z, to this generation Y, the digital natives, they're very different around the world, but they're similar in how they deal with technology. So we receive so many students from around the world, including from US business schools, to either study abroad or on exchange programs. You put them with our students in the same room. They're thinking the same way. It's all data driven, it's all entrepreneurial, it's all sort of taking more risk. And it's all how to, in my view, how to address issues that affect their society. So from that perspective, having also been part of your competition in the US, in Canada and in England. And I look at what we do here in Cairo, the incubation period, the coaching, the mentorship, the questions that the entrepreneurs, or to be entrepreneurs, ask, it's almost identical. So the similarities or how to prepare them to meet the challenges of the market, what needs to be in the in the in the curriculum and in the exposure they get through the different learning experience, which is where goes way beyond the classroom. I should say, I want to say it's almost identical, what is different? Is the elements, the local context they operate in, sometimes the social economic context, sometimes the opportunities that they are exposed to. Sometimes it's the percentage of the interaction they have with with their counterparts around the world is surely not at the same level, so we try to accommodate that while looking at what the market needs, what the values are, what we want to have our future leaders and change makers look like, factored in, in the learning experience, yet very much exposed to what's happening around the world, for a very simple reason. So the graduates of the school, I'm talking of the school now, not the university, since we started, is about 20,000 graduates. Nearly half of them are living in 60 different countries. So half of our graduates are not living anymore in Egypt. So they need to be prepared on how to operate in different environments, not just to the details of how to do business, how to live, how to get exposed, how to accept different elements that relates to how to live in and work in different environments.
Dave 16:12
What about some of the distinctions? And I guess I'm thinking a little bit more about on the faculty, staff side of the house.
Sherif Kamel 16:22
Sure. So let me go back to the AUC charter. The HA charter entails that 45% of the fact that they should be Americans, 45% should be Egyptians, 10% could be any other nationality. Of course, these percentages vary from one year to the other. But the fact that we have, for example, at the school, over 40% of our faculty international that brings in the international experience into the classroom. We also have a factored in when it comes to the students and internship program and a Co Op program that takes them elsewhere, other than local companies and other organizations. So the one thing that eludes us is the percentage of international students in the classroom, but when it comes to the material they study, the faculty that teaches them that the courses and the exposure through short term travels, it's there, but the presence of study abroad students for extensive period of time that will not die yet.
Ken 17:31
So with that complexity of demographics, both students placements as well as faculty from where they emanate. Change is complicated. You know, your vision is compelling, but how have you, how have you enlisted? How have you brought faculty along? How have you, how have you brought staff along? How have you brought the university along? These are, you know, it's, it's a bold enough vision that I would imagine getting all the constituents aligned is complicated. Get
Sherif Kamel 18:04
an excellent question, and I have to go back to september 2009 and I gotta, I want to repeat that the year before. It was not even in my mind. But when the opportunity presents itself, I looked at it as an opportunity to serve a school that at the time, I was part of it for nearly 20 plus years, even more. And I'll tell you, I mean, it is so difficult to have the opportunity to be in a school where you studied which were very simple reasons. Statistically, I looked at the faculty roster at the time, there were almost evenly split between a third who were my professors, a third who were my classmates with a difference of a year or two, and almost a third who were my students who ended up as faculty. How do you deal with those? And I remember very well I asked for a school meeting maybe two weeks into into my tenure as dean and and I'm explaining exactly what happened. I asked one of my former professor to sit on my left and one of my former students to sit on my right, and then it wasn't a long meeting. It was like 45 minutes, even less. But I started it off by saying, I'm here because of you. And then I pointed out to the faculty on my left, I am here because you helped me learn stuff that led me to be able to be even a candidate for this position. And then I looked on my right and I said, But you, you? You kept on challenging me and asking me questions in the classroom that actually build my reputation. That led me to be where I am, here and for my colleagues who are. My classmates, thank you for all your support. I promise you can indeed, this was key to the following 10 years, and to date, I think nobody can do anything alone. It's all about bringing the stakeholders on campus, and I mean it to challenge me and my colleagues all the time, and not just on campus, bringing in the different stakeholders. This is a I always look at this position. It's my it's my six different position in my career, as the most challenging, but the most enjoyable. I love the job, because you deal with so many different people, whether it's students, graduates, alumni, corporate, partners, faculty, staff, you name it, and you deal with them at different levels, but at the same time, you need to have that balance, that you're really up there looking at the vision, the strategy, where we want to be, how to get there. But at the same time, you cannot let go the operation. You cannot micromanage either, but you have to keep an eye of how the ship is moving. So dealing with these different dynamics, I should say it's almost that 20 hours a day job, because if you're not in the office, you're thinking about but the key point here is communication, communication, communication to town halls. I go to my faculty on a one to one basis every single semester, sometimes more than once, sit in their offices or having coffee somewhere just to brainstorm, to get that input. This is a this is the brain power at school. I often told them, Listen, we're living in a world that is very entrepreneurial. Many of our graduates do not even consider working for anything but starting up their own startups or working for multinationals the likes of, you know, Islamic J or PNG or, you know, you name it, why don't you think of me instead of dean of a business school, a CEO of an intellectual enterprise? By doing that, we will be quick, we'll be agile, will be resilient. We will be less opposing change, because we need to drive change, and we if we ask them to drive change, we need to practice what we preach. So communication, communication, communications, through different focus groups, dinners, lunches, coffee is instrumental in engaging and empowering the different stakeholders, whether on campus, as I said, including, by the way, students, our students, are part of our council of the school, strategic advisory board of the school. I attend departmental meetings, but I also have meetings with them, separately as students and as student leaders of different business associations and clubs.
Dave 23:00
Sharif, earlier in our conversation, you mentioned that a driving force, either for yourself, personally or for for the business school more broadly, was to drive impact on society. I was wondering if you could build that out. You know what? What markers are you thinking about when you make a statement like that? Or, you know what? Build that out a little bit for us,
Sherif Kamel 23:28
sure. So we look at our degree program. We look our students. How many students do we have at school, including graduate students, 1600 we also serve about 1000 from other schools where they attend courses in economics and business and the like. But then I look other than the degree programs, we are executive education arm, but we had our multiple platform that are engaged with community developer activities. Those community developer activities includes specific capacity building programs for youth, for women, people outside Cairo, people in the underprivileged communities all around Egypt. And it's 27 different provinces. And if you work the numbers, Dave, you'll realize that this probably represents like 65% of our activities. We want to scale the impact, opening up opportunities for people that are not necessarily associated with school. We're still doing our job as a school of business, but there's a lot more that we can do that goes beyond the campus boundaries. And I think over the last I mean, we started executive education back in 1966 so with throughout the executification journey, but also the community development activities, through different projects, through different capacity building, through going out. And what I mean by going out is that it's always a joint effort by faculty, staff and. Led by students. I mean, we want to lead by example, giving a good example of how community development should be part and parcel of the business school, given that Egypt has 94 different universities. And by the way, if you look put down on scale, us as a business school, we are by far the smallest in terms of numbers, in terms of size of students, but as an impact, we get our students engaged, and this is part and parcel of the learning experience. So So with that, we have projects that relates to learning difference, a variety of sets of skills. The part that I call it the economic development arm of the school is a center named after one of our former presidents, John Gerhardt, is called the John Gerhardt center for philanthropy, setting engagement and responsible business. This is a center that is primarily working for community development across the board, in certain areas that relates to climate, to sustainability, to governance and a whole lot of other issues,
Ken 26:02
stay on that pivot, if you will, about executive education and some of the topics and so what you envision your, you know, aucs role in developing programs for executives and leaders outside of your your student population.
Sherif Kamel 26:22
So we look at executive education as an extremely important link to the market experience that should be brought into the classroom. We don't look at it as silos. So as part of our faculty who teach in executive education, but also part of people who teach in executive education, who we invite to teach in courses or to guest lecture in the courses that bridge we try as much as possible, week in, week out, to build, if we still are focused on the theoretical part which is important, will not prep our Students enough to be able to compete in today's marketplace. So exactly location for us is the topics that are relevant, that are timely for government, private sector and civil society. That role we also look at at it as as a responsibility for us to scale up the impact of the school, not just in Egypt, but also across Africa. Africa was 54 countries. There is a whole lot boom for development, for leaders, for middle managers, for first time officers, and we try to do that through programs in trade, in marketing, in finance, in strategy, in leadership. I mean, there's a lot that we do in execution in Africa as well, but of course, we also serve our market
Ken 27:52
well. Thank you. We want to we really greatly appreciate, as we said in the beginning, to our audience, this would be a rich, full conversation, and it indeed has will reserve for another conversation, an opportunity to learn about your role at AACSB. And without a doubt, we're intrigued by the upcoming transformation that can occur with the type of institutional advancement that you noted earlier. So we'll have a lot to talk we had a lot to talk about today, and we'll have a lot to talk about in a future engagement. Thank you. Well,
Sherif Kamel 28:32
Karen, thank you so much. Thank you for for the opportunity. I think this, this sort of a platform, is extremely important for me as well. I have to say, I listened to several of the podcasts. This is a very rich material from different perspective, from different lead leaders and deans and academic leaders from different parts of the world. So this is very useful for us, because this is a journey for any Dean. You never get there. You just keep it.
Dave 28:57
That's so true. That's so true. Well, that's, that's a big part of why we're doing this.
Sherif Kamel 29:02
Thank you.
Ken 29:12
That was fascinating, wasn't it, Dave,
Dave 29:14
it sure was. It sure was. I really enjoyed his perspective. And there were, there were kind of two things that struck me. One was I was just fascinated about how a person could effectively spend almost all of their adult life, both as a student, as a faculty member and as an administrator at one institution. That's fascinating, but but I really appreciated his his his perspective on this notion of having a global impact on society, you know, this notion of reaching outside the four walls of his business school. And I really appreciate his, his perspective on the need to to affect Africa more broadly. So I was just really impressed with with his vision and his observations.
Ken 30:06
Yeah, well, you know, one of my takeaways was he was able to convey both big ideas, big vision, but also the kind of insights around, how do you, how do you get things done? Yeah, toggling very naturally to your point. You know, even even though he has spent the kind of time he spent at one institution, that experience and learning actually creates a basis for agility, and he really is able to move sort of across the spectrum and and frankly, some of the work they're doing within the university and as representatives of the university is as important as you know, the island of business education, which isn't treated as An island at all,
Dave 30:59
right, right? I think the other he was very modest in sharing this, but he talked about when he first took that role on, you know, because he had spent so much time in that institution, had faculty who he looked up to, and had students that he had as an instructor, the way he shared that experience was a very humbling way he approached the position as dean, recognizing how he had grown personally from all of their efforts. And I think that was a great way to kind of break down barriers and and kind of level the playing field. And that's probably, in other words, he didn't view it as a as a steep, hierarchical cultural environment, but I'm sure that helped shape his leadership style and has made him more effective than what he's what he's accomplished. Yeah,
Ken 31:54
it's the charm and authenticity help a lot. They don't take away from leadership at all. Yeah, only contribute to it,
Thank you for listening to this episode of Deans Counsel. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Deans Counsel was produced in Boulder, Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts. For a catalogue of previous shows, please visit our website at Dean's council.com If you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback at Dean's council.com. And finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you can automatically receive our latest show