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Leading in an Era of Innovation
In an ever-evolving world where the future of living, work and people is constantly being redefined by digital, it is crucial for business leaders to have the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate these transformations. 
In anticipation of this need, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) launched the Digital MBA for Global Leaders (DiMBA) in 2021 as a two-year part time program designed specifically to help executives and senior professionals to transform their businesses while shaping the future of what business should look like in a digital era. 
“Change is a fact of life for any organisation,” said Prof Stephen Shih, Associate Dean of the HKUST MBA Programs and Adjunct Professor of Management. “Innovation must be a top priority for all businesses today. Every organisation needs to adapt to huge changes happening around the world.” 
Accordingly, these changes include: how to capitalise on new technologies like generative AI, how to respond to global challenges such as climate change, and how to operate in a geopolitically multipolar and multicultural world. 
“Our curriculum therefore helps people be effective leaders in this type of environment in this type of era,” he explained. Indeed, the DiMBA programme goes beyond traditional business education to nurture change leaders who aspire to make a lasting difference in their industries. The program itself is designed to empower individuals to become catalysts for innovation, embracing the challenges of tomorrow and driving meaningful impact. 
Organisations today face a myriad of complex problems, explained Professor Stephen Nason, professor in Business Practice within the Department of Management. In order to effectively deal with these challenges, adaptive thinking and communication skills that capitalise on new technologies is required. These could include understanding the use of AI.  
According to Professor Nason, “the focus of the program is therefore to analyse these new kinds of problems and to equip students with the ability to analyze these novel problems,” he said. “Furthermore, it is about fostering the right mindset that is necessary for coming up with innovative and impactful solutions.”  
By integrating managerial and leadership tools and techniques in a trans-disciplinary manner, the program aims to enhance business leaders' adaptability to the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
“So when we’re talking about adaptive thinking, we’re talking about being able to adapt to a new kind of problem that is unfamiliar in some way, that is more difficult. How do you adapt in such a situation?,” he said. 
Prof Shih also notes that the MBA’s uniquely broad curriculum that spans marketing to finance to strategy to technology management prepares students to collaborate more effectively. 
“Students enhance their ‘intellectual’ empathy and are able to understand why their colleagues in finance or their counterparts in supply chain think the way they do, and what needs they have,” he said. 
And this is what allows Digital MBA students to be well prepared to lead the cross-functional and cross-organisational efforts that will create the most value in the coming years and help tackle global problems like climate change.  
Given its purpose and direction, the DiMBA curriculum very much focuses on teaching through experiential activities, while incorporating state of the art technology and new tools such as ChatGPT. As the very first in Asia, the school opened a state-of-the-art virtual classroom environment to offer an interactive learning environment that mimics a physical classroom. It allows the program to fulfil one of its core purposes which is to foster collaboration by allowing students from diverse professional backgrounds and cultures to exchange ideas, challenge each other’s perspectives and develop a culture of innovation. Indeed, the last two cohorts of DiMBA students came from 19 nationalities and reside in over 10 countries. As such, through interactive discussions, group projects, and real-world case studies, it aims to develop the essential skills to thrive in a globalised and interconnected business environment.  
Given the program’s focus on digital and its accessibility, it has given DiMBA students a unique edge when it comes to operating in a multipolar, complex world. According to Professor Shih, this is all important when learning how to influence and build relationships in remote environments.
“We have students from Japan to Beijing to Thailand to Singapore, and so it’s a great way for people around the region to study and have access to an HKUST MBA, while continuing to work and lead their teams,” Professor Shih said.  Indeed, the HKUST Business School MBA program is highly sought after. Its accolades are plenty. Recently, it was ranked number one in Asia Pacific by Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools and MBA program 2023-24.  Added to that, the program was also awarded an EdTech Heroes Award this year for adult learning from charity organisation Esperanza, who advocates innovation in digital education. 
So, alongside the program’s esteemed faculty and facility, its distinct internationalism is able to offer valuable insights and perspectives from a host of Asian countries and beyond, while schooling executives on how to operate in remote and digital environments which are becoming more common place.“It allows us to bring in the students that otherwise wouldn’t be able to come and live in Hong Kong face to face to work together to solves some complex problems, it fosters that,” said Professor Nason. “But the world we live in is also becoming increasingly digital and we have to learn how to handle this kind of digital environment we live in, so the MBA directly ties into one aspect of this emerging world that we need to live in.” 
With a promise to nurture change leaders and trailblazers who will be able to shape the future of business, Professor Shih says: “We work hard to equip our students with an innovative mindset and an entrepreneurial spirit. We encourage them to be creative, open to change and confident in taking risks”. 

 


An MBA for a Digital World

HKUST

Business