A peer-to-peer discussion with the Dean of the VinUniversity College of Business and Management in Hanoi, Vietnam.

🎙️As business schools face an era of significant uncertainty and change, reflective of the major global and technological shifts today, VinUniversity in Hanoi, Vietnam, is helping redefine the future of higher education and business education. At five years-young, the institution and its College of Business and Management seeks high-achieving students with the goal to drive innovation through global collaboration and research. Key to its entrepreneurial model is building upon a foundation of strategic partnerships with Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business, University of Pennsylvania, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

John Evans, Dean of the VinUni’s College of Business and Management and former Pro Vice Chancellor and President of Curtin University, Dubai campus, shares his unique challenges and learnings from establishing a startup business school within an emerging university—and what opportunities the future holds for both. Attracting and hiring top faculty has proved one of his greatest difficulties; persuading tenured professors to take a leap of faith on a new venture in a faraway country, giving up what they’ve taken years to earn is a tough sell. However, Evans has had luck with finding academics who have been working at international branch campuses for various universities looking to expand their horizons as part of a new university. 

As he’s transitioned from the role as a college president, there has been a learning curve, but the shift from enterprise-wide to division-level responsibilities has been extremely positive. Evans now has the ability to spend more time mentoring new and early-career faculty and build relevant and timely programs to boost recruitment in an intensified, competitive environment. 

As he explains, “The younger generation, they're very switched on, and your curriculum has got to be up there. It's got to be modern. It's got to be new. It's got to have the technologies in there. If you're doing finance now, they expect to understand the digital world, or digital currencies, and using. AI, trading rules and things like this. So it's, it's, it's really important to to stay in touch with that aspect of your business as well.”

A current challenge he, like many domestic business deans, faces is building an MBA that encompasses these aspects of technical fluency, experiential learning and enduring human centered skills such as communication and critical thinking, for which they are bringing in lots of speakers and industry connectivity to bolster its quality and growth. 

Overall, Evans is balancing frustrations with wins and focusing on a set of five KPIs to guide the next phases of development for the business school. Listeners will find episode 68 is a keen conversation about cumulative lessons learned in leadership roles and how to leverage one’s previous experiences to continue learning and building yourself when taking on new positions. 

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Photos courtesy of VinUniversity

Read more about John Evans here.