First Australian chair of global tertiary alliance appointed

The University of Sydney Business School is the only Australian member of CEMS alliance which includes 32 of the world’s leading business schools and a number multinational companies.

Education without borders, which produces highly skilled and culturally aware global citizens, offers an opportunity to blunt the worldwide trend towards nationalism, protectionism and political division, according to the new Australian Chair of the CEMS Global Alliance in Management Education.

The Dean of the University of Sydney Business School, Professor Greg Whitwell, made the comments in Malta following his elevation to the leadership of the Alliance of leading educational institutions.

Professor Whitwell, the first non-European Chair of CEMS, succeeds Professor Eugenia Bieto, the Director General of ESADE Business School, Barcelona.

Professor Whitwell praised Professor Bieto’s leadership of the CEMS Alliance over the past two years and said it was a great honour to be following in her footsteps.

Professor Whitwell’s appointment is widely seen as an endorsement of his inclusive leadership style and his strong commitment to international education.

Appointed Dean of the University of Sydney Business School just four and half years ago, Professor Whitwell takes up his new CEMS role after having already served for two years as the Alliance’s Deputy Chair.

Commenting on the significance of his appointment, Professor Whitwell said, "to have an Australian as Chair is testimony to the truly global nature of CEMS and recognition of the Business School's reputation for excellence in management education”.

“The admission this year of the New York-based Cornell SC Johnson College of Business also strengthens our claim to genuine global status,” he said.

Founded more than 30 years ago as a pan-European organization, CEMS has members in South Korea, Canada, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Chile, Japan, Brazil, Egypt, Australia and now the United States.

Accredited member schools collaborate on the delivery of a ‘globally integrated’ Master of International Management (MiM) program to around 1,200 students from about 60 different countries annually.

Each year, graduands from around the world gather for a single graduation ceremony. Last year the ceremony took place in Sydney and this year on the Mediterranean island nation of Malta.   

Graduates from the elite, internationally-orientated program must have a working knowledge of at least three languages and have studied in a country other than their own.

“CEMS is absolutely unique in that it is the only grouping of business schools that offers a post graduate degree program – this is truly education without borders.

“As a result, our graduates are the embodiment of what a divided world needs most: a generation of global citizens, who have experienced first-hand the benefits of cultural diversity, and who have put into practice the notion of inclusive leadership," said Professor Whitwell.

Following graduation, most students follow an international path to success. Nearly a 100 per cent of CEMS alumni are employed or are continuing their studies; nearly 50 per cent are living outside of their homeland and 75 per cent work for multinational companies.

The Paris-based CEMS Global Alliance partners with more than seventy social and corporate collaborators including Care International, Maersk, ABB, AstraZeneca, Google, Helti and Deloitte. 

“These organisations offer our students exposure to the international corporate environment and to networking opportunities while at the same time, recognising the quality of our graduates.

“Leading businesses are now looking for recruits who have the kind of skills gained through the CEMS Master of International Management. They are agile, adaptable, culturally-aware, socially-responsible and can think outside the box,” Professor Whitwell concluded.

Earlier this year the global CEMS Master of International Management Program, which is offered by the alliance members, including the University of Sydney Business School, was ranked ninth in the world by the Financial Times.