The P&Q Interview: Horacio Arredondo, Dean Of EGADE Business School

A year after Horacio Arredondo was named dean of EGADE Business School at Tecnológico de Monterrey, the “Mexico Moment” arrived.

In 2023, for the first time more than two decades, Mexico surpassed China as the United States’s top trading partner. It was a major coup for Mexico, which had seen the value of goods imported to the U.S. increase by almost 5%, to over $475 billion, in the space of a year.

By fall 2024, with new President Claudia Sheinbaum elected and reason to believe the country’s economic good fortune was set to be long-term, Arredondo, now two years into his deanship, had much to be confident about. In a wide-ranging conversation with Poets&Quants, he spoke expansively about the role of his school in an exciting moment in Mexican history.

“The purpose of EGADE right now is to rethink the future of business, to impact the sustainable development of Latin America,” Arredondo said, noting that the school’s university had launched a 2030 Strategic Plan to focus on these exact questions: to establish, he said, “a clear vision of what we want to be the role of EGADE in Latin America, especially in Latin America.”

One of the key reflections that came from this discussion: that EGADE is “a global school, but we want to be a global school with a deep impact in Latin America,” Arredondo said. “We always say that we’re a business school from Mexico to the world. We want to say from Latin America to the world.”

A BOLD & AMBITIOUS VISION

EGADE is the only multi-campus business school in Latin America with triple accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business in the United States, Association of MBAs in the UK, and EQUIS in Europe. It has campuses in Santa Fe (Mexico City), Monterrey, and Guadalajara. It is also an academic founding partner of the Global Network for Advanced Management, a network of 32 international institutions dedicated to transform global education business. Though it has not been there lately, EGADE is the only Mexican school to achieve a place in The Financial Times‘s annual Global MBA ranking.

EGADE has six master’s programs, three MBA programs including an online MBA and a full-time MBA, an executive MBA conducted in tandem with the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, and more than 20 executive education programs in Spanish and English. Its reach across Latin America is enormous: More than 80% of its students come from Central and South America, and around three-quarters stay in Latin America to work after graduating.

Arredondo, who earned a DBA from Spain’s IE Business School shortly after arriving at EGADE in summer 2022, spent more than 10 years before that teaching family business strategy and general management at Adolfo Ibañez University, a private university in Santiago, Chile. When he arrived at EGADE, he and the school immediately called together all stakeholders to undertake a comprehensive review, and to define a new strategy and purpose. In the wake of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic that sparked a drive across the higher education landscape for better teaching methods, better delivery, and better infrastructure, EGADE’s leadership was far more ambitious, calling for nothing less than the rethinking of the future of business to positively impact the sustainable development of Latin America. In a message introducing EGADE’s just-released 2024 annual report, Arredondo writes that this second year of his headship was one of reinforcing strategic vision in key areas, “including sustainable development, industry transformation in the face of technological disruption, and strengthening corporate governance as a driver of business growth.”

EGADE is on its way to fulfilling the purpose Arredondo declared for it when he was hired: “to create a future in which businesses will have an impact on Latin America’s sustainable development, for which we need to challenge the existing paradigms and create positive change in society.”

A ‘MOMENT’ MARRED?

The “Mexico Moment” that Horacio Arredondo spoke of this fall may still be underway, just not in the way Mexico — or anyone anywhere just a couple short months ago — expected. Donald Trump has threatened that when he takes office as U.S. president in January, he will impose a massive tariff on all Mexican goods that would devastate the country’s nascent economy.

Arredondo won’t say that Trump’s tariffs can stop Mexico’s economic rise. What he knows is that regardless, EGADE’s thought leaders — its researchers, faculty, students and graduates — will play a role in analyzing, debating, and leading on the issues in real time.

“Both countries need each other. We can hear some narratives here and there. But at the end, both countries need each other,” he says.

“The treaty agreement has a discussion in the new year. We are expecting that discussion also. It is very interesting to be here right now. Here in EGADE, what we want is to be an ecosystem in which you can come here to hear interesting things about the future and how we can challenge the status quo, because we truly believe that we need to keep pushing the economy for a better future. And if we achieve that, we are achieving our purpose. We are working a lot on that.”

See below for a Q&A with EGADE Dean Horacio Arredondo, edited for length and clarity and updated January 15.

POETS&QUANTS’ INTERVIEW WITH HORACIO ARREDONDO, DEAN OF EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL AT TECNOLÓGICO DE MONTERREY

Poets&Quants: You joined EGADE in 2022. Let’s start by talking about how those two-plus years have gone in your view. It’s been a busy time. What are some accomplishments? What are some challenges?

Horacio Arredondo: It’s been both a challenge and an extraordinary opportunity to arrive at a school well-positioned worldwide with the resources, global accreditation, and recognition we possess at EGADE. It’s also very exciting because I arrived just after the pandemic, which allows us to rethink many things. It has been an incredible journey so far. When I joined EGADE, we initiated a comprehensive strategic reflection to envision the next eight years. The 2030 Roadmap at Tecnologico de Monterrey set out a clear institutional vision for the impact of the university on our society through leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. I felt that this was the opportunity to further align EGADE with that vision.

We initiated a three-month discussion focused on stakeholders on the future and purpose of EGADE, as well as our goals for the coming eight years, from 2022 to 2030. Additionally, we crafted our new strategic plan for 2030 with a renewed purpose: to rethink the future of business to impact the sustainable development of Latin America. The plan outlines a clear vision of the role we aim to play in advancing progress not only in Mexico but throughout Latin America. A significant takeaway from that strategic conversation was that we are indeed a global institution, yet we aspire to be a global institution with a profound impact in Latin America — a global business school that connects Latin America to the world.

Tell us about the 2030 plan and the pillars. What are some of the pillars of the plan?

Our school motto at EGADE is: Challenge the present, Shape the future.

We want to change how business is done in the region, accompanying companies and leaders in transforming their businesses, organizations and sectors. This also means transforming business education itself. Our 2030 plan has three main pillars: the first is to be Latin America’s academic benchmark. We have world-class researchers and will continue investing in cutting-edge academic research aligned with the critical challenges and opportunities that Latin American businesses and our society face.

The second is to consolidate our leadership in graduate education and groundbreaking executive education that transforms how business is conducted in Mexico and across the region, promoting enhanced levels of productivity, innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability in the business ecosystems across diverse sectors. From Mexico, where we have most impact, we have consistently sought to broaden the impact we and our stakeholders can have across the rest of Latin America; thus, our third goal is to continue building meaningful partnerships with international academic, corporate, institutional, and civic organizations to expand our reach in Latin America, and from here to the rest of the world. 

About that last one, your partnership with GNAM, with the Global Network for Advanced Management, could that play a part, be a vehicle for that expanded reach?

Yes, of course. Being part of GNAM has been a game-changer for EGADE, offering unparalleled opportunities for student mobility with other global leading institutions across every continent. Our students have many opportunities to participate in diverse global study experiences provided by the GNAM member schools; the perspectives gained from diverse regions, countries, cultures, and economies in different phases of development are very enriching for our students and help deepen their understanding of global business and increase their effectiveness as leaders.  

Likewise, students coming to EGADE from across the world are very interested in Mexican models of innovation and our approaches to sustainable development and also seek to better understand the regional geopolitical context, with Mexico at the axis of Latin America and North America, to understand the new opportunities that are emerging in the region in technology -led industries like fintech, biotech, advanced health sciences, sustainable manufacturing, semiconductors, among others, as well as the global “nearshoring” opportunities that are accelerating in Mexico brought about, inter alia, by the new geopolitical order and the changes to global supply chain management in a post-pandemic context.

Beyond GNAM, we offer almost thirty double degree options for our students, including the dual-degree Executive MBA program with W.P. Carey at Arizona State University, as well as many dual-degree opportunities — both MBA and specialist master’s — with institutions such as Yale School of Management, HEC Paris, ESCP, France, Pompeu Fabra, Spain, and others in North America and Europe. The highly globalized nature of our academic experience and the extensive portfolio of programs with over 150 global academic partners provide a unique gateway for our students to develop a global vision, expertise and network alongside many faculty development opportunities.

Our Tecnológico de Monterrey footprint across Latin America, in markets like Colombia and Peru, enables us to leverage many new opportunities. In executive education, we have been working to extend our impact beyond Mexico in areas like advanced management, family business and strategic digital transformation.  

The global reach and impact of EGADE as part of Tec de Monterrey have always been a true hallmark of our brand in Latin America, and we will always seek to develop meaningful global partnerships for student and faculty mobility and, beyond that, for applied research, executive education and other strategic initiatives. 

We are a long-term signatory and a Champion School of the UN Global Compact, Principles for Responsible Management Education initiative. This provides a valuable overarching framework that guides our development as a school in terms of sustainability and social impact, with a focus on curricular and co-curricular areas, applied research impact, and our broader stakeholder engagement with business and society. 

For someone who’s not familiar with EGADE, what would you like them to know first and foremost? You’re well known for your sustainability programming. You’re well known for your entrepreneurship programming. What else? What would you like people to know most about EGADE?

I can mention four key areas of impact. Firstly, as you say, entrepreneurship has been a core pillar of Tecnologico de Monterrey since its foundation over 80 years ago, so this is a natural area of impact for EGADE. As I said, sustainability has been a long-term pillar in our programs, and we are constantly seeking to strengthen our impact in this area, not least through partnerships. For example, our program in Climate Governance for Board Directors and Leadership is offered with Chapter Zero, our ESG leadership program is provided as a partnership with the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (Mexico´s principal business confederation), and our program in Advancing Women in Organizations is offered in collaboration with McKinsey. We also work a lot in social entrepreneurship that is aligned with sustainability. Entrepreneurship sustainability innovation is another considerable strength of our faculty.

We are also well-known for our finance programs and the capability and quality of our faculty in this area. We have a global top-30-ranked Master in Finance program and a doctoral program in finance. Many graduates from our finance programs are among the region’s most senior business and finance leaders.

Being part of Tecnológico de Monterrey offers incredible opportunities for building multidisciplinary impact. So, technology-led innovation is a vital area for EGADE. We collaborate with our world-class engineering school at Tec to provide programs such as the Master’s in Business Analytics, leverage the remarkable innovation ecosystem that Tec has developed over many decades, and create opportunities for our students, researchers, and alumni to advance technology-based startups.

Finally, our focus on the future of business and the co-creation of solutions that are transformative for our society is an area I would like to highlight. We have a highly active participation in the futures community at Tec. This fantastic initiative encourages interdisciplinary collaboration across our schools to promote innovation projects that enhance our understanding of today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities. Hence, we can create futures with greater opportunities. Given their unique capacity to produce knowledge, foster innovation, and shape future leaders, UNESCO highlights higher-education institutions’ role in addressing complex challenges. Along with our graduate school of Government and Public Transformation, EGADE co-chairs the first UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Leadership for Better and Innovative Futures in Latin America, reinforcing our solid commitment to innovation and sustainability and opening an ecosystem for collaboration with local and global impact. 

On the technology front, what are your thoughts on AI and how so many schools seem to be gearing their programs, adjusting their programs, adjusting their curricula for AI?

Tecnológico de Monterrey is an incredibly forward-thinking institution where leveraging emerging technology for learning solutions and other innovations is embedded in our DNA. The first Internet connection in Latin America was established at Tec, and virtual (satellite-led) education has been a reality at our institution since the 1980s. So its not surprising that in 2023, we launched TecGPT, a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered ecosystem, built on the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and utilizing OpenAI’s GPT-4, which comprises various tools and serves two primary functions: administrative and academic. It personalizes education based on each student’s needs, enhancing the learning process, promoting faculty creativity, and saving time on tedious tasks. Also, as well as the teaching-learning process, it provides an interesting impact for research areas. This is the first application of a generative AI ecosystem in higher education in Mexico and Latin America.

So, at EGADE, we certainly embrace AI and are committed to ensuring that our students, faculty, and other stakeholders have every opportunity to be at the forefront of technological disruption, including the opportunities presented by AI. We have updated our curricula to integrate courses on AI, machine learning, and data analytics, allowing students to understand how to apply these technologies in a business context, and we use simulation platforms that incorporate AI to help students make decisions in realistic business scenarios. Collaborating with our network of almost 1,000 connected companies at EGADE, especially technology companies like Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, Amazon, Gartner, and others, to bring the vanguard of AI tools, workshops, lectures, and internship opportunities to our students is vitally important.

In the broader context, we understand that AI presents unprecedented opportunities to tackle complex challenges, whether in the areas of sustainable industrialization, climate change, poverty, or public health crises. The new “Intelligent Age” brings many unparalleled opportunities and challenges, and we must prepare organizations, businesses, and leaders to engage successfully and responsibly in this new era. In Mexico, we have opportunities to accelerate our economic growth and development for sustainable and shared prosperity and to capitalize on the unique “Mexican moment,” as international commentators refer to it. The geopolitical context has opened up significant inward investment for relocation and in other industrial, commercial, and service areas from companies across North and Latin America, Europe, and Asia, seeking to leverage Mexico’s numerous global trade agreements, not least the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. 

If this is the Mexican moment, EGADE has to lead it, right? You have to be at the forefront of that.

Absolutely. Mexico ranks among the top 15 economies in the world, and there’s no reason we can’t become a top-10 global economy in the medium term. Recently, Mexico has made significant progress in economic development. The number of Mexicans living in poverty has decreased from 52 million to 47 million, and this figure is likely to have dropped further in 2024, according to independent measurements. Having benefited from a global relocation of industrial investment, Mexico has surpassed China as the top trading partner of the United States and is now the 11th-largest recipient of foreign direct investment worldwide.

Nevertheless, Mexico’s rising status as a global industrial hub has not led to the economic development experienced, for example, by the so-called Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) in the 1960s. Mexico still faces significant opportunities to boost productivity, increase industrial sophistication and sustainability, enhance energy and transport infrastructure, build more sustainable access to raw materials and other resources (including water), accelerate the development of specialist skills, foster innovation and enhance global competitiveness. At EGADE, as at Tecnológico de Monterrey, we are deeply committed to collaborating with industry, government at all levels, civil society, and academic partners to promote working together for a better future. We seek to be at the forefront in articulating strategies that can serve policymakers to support long-term competitiveness and growth for shared prosperity and to prepare highly skilled, specialized leadership talent to accelerate our progress as an economy and a country, tackling significant challenges. 

Our applied research strategy as an institution directs us to focus our resources on areas where we can make a meaningful difference. Alongside the strategic applied research and outreach happening across each of the six schools at Tec de Monterrey, we also maintain a cross-cutting strategic focus on three key areas where we can create a significant impact: in the future of education through our Institute for the Future of Education; in health sciences, tackling the obesity epidemic in Mexico with innovative solutions and treatments through the Institute for Obesity Research, which aids in enhancing the health and well-being of the Mexican population; and in fostering sustainable industrialization and a carbon-neutral economy through advanced materials development at our Institute for Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing. Focusing our talent on deep-dives into solving pressing challenges that align with our institutional strengths and capabilities makes sense regarding our research impact. We have alliances with top-tier research universities and institutes in the United States and Europe to partner with us in these critical areas, ensuring that the impact and reach of our solutions are broader and deeper.

Will much of that depend on the new U.S. administration?

The context in which we operate in higher education and business education is constantly shifting, so the ability to think and act with a long-term view in uncertain and ambiguous environments has become the new normal. The U.S. and Mexico share nearly a 2,000-mile border and an inseparable trade relationship worth hundreds of billions annually. Mexico has become the U.S.’s most important trading partner, accounting for almost 16% of America’s total trade in 2024. Moreover, Mexicans represent 60% of U.S. Hispanics — the largest group by far — with approximately 37.99 million people of Mexican descent residing in the U.S. in 2023, according to the Pew Research Center. Thus, profound cultural, social, and economic ties exist between Mexico and the U.S., stemming from over 200 years of diplomatic relations.

Despite differing narratives at times, both countries rely on each other through collaboration that extends well beyond trade to encompass security, migration and many other areas. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, updated four years ago, has resulted in significant growth and benefits for North American manufacturing, especially for Mexico. While labour shortages, infrastructure challenges, and potential increases in U.S. protectionism present risks to our competitiveness, numerous new opportunities can be leveraged. As higher education institutions, we hold a unique position to collaborate with partner universities, industry, and other stakeholders across North America in various areas: enhancing student mobility between Mexico, the USA, and Canada; providing solutions to climate change; jointly addressing issues like water scarcity; supporting and comprehending the needs of the Hispanic population in the United States; jointly developing innovation ecosystems, especially regional ecosystems, and utilizing AI to drive future jobs.

The USMCA will be reviewed in 2026, with discussions commencing around its implications for each country. We must continue steering our economy towards a more prosperous future and foster a more just, equitable, and sustainable future for Mexico and the region. Achieving that fulfills our purpose and motivates us to redouble our efforts for the impact we can have as a business school in serving the advancement of Mexico and Latin America.

We’re seeing a big jump in MBA applications at the major U.S. business schools. Are you seeing that at EGADE? What do you think that means right now?

In Latin America, the market leans more towards part-time MBA programs. We have a solid full-time MBA at EGADE — ranked 56th in the world by QS — but our part-time MBA programs attract most students. In the part-time programs —designed for mid-career or more senior professionals — we’re certainly noticing a growing number of applications. We constantly innovate across all our MBA programs (part-time, full-time, online and Executive MBAs) to maintain their relevance and impact.

We often hear discussions about whether the MBA is obsolete. Given the highly complex and interconnected challenges we face today in business and as a society, I believe the MBA remains the most constructive and productive space for preparing leaders to tackle these challenges. Having a diverse and culturally rich environment where students can address, discuss, and experiment around issues is crucial, with a focus — not just on knowledge acquisition in functional areas like marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, or global business strategy — but also on developing the leadership character and competence to navigate the unique challenges they will encounter in their careers.

Our task is no longer to develop knowledge in several specific areas. It’s about harnessing multi-disciplinary teams with a large breadth of competencies. We want to equip our students with the ability to lead, solve strategic problems, mobilize their organizations, and be very agile in adapting to different and often uncertain contexts across multiple geographies. 

Beyond the MBA portfolio, we also see a growth in applications for other programmes. All our specialist master’s programs are ranked number one in Latin America. Our Master’s in Business Analytics ranks among the QS Global Top 30 programs and is experiencing strong demand. We’re also launching new programs, including a Master’s in Business Sustainability, later in 2025, given the pressing need for companies to understand this critical strategic area better. In recent years, the focus has shifted from ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) to broader sustainability issues and how businesses can address current and future challenges. Unlike many sustainability programs worldwide that are more typically engineering-focused, ours will be offered through a business school lens. We take great pride in this upcoming program, and once the rigorous Mexican regulatory process is fully in place, we look forward to receiving the first generation in Fall 2025.

For years, a problem for all of business education has been trying to get more women into MBA programs. Things are moving along in the United States. The top schools are getting more and more women. Europe is kind of behind the U.S.

We are behind Europe in Latin America.

All right. I’m wondering, then, what you have to do to appeal more to women, to get more women in your programs.

So, first some context on the broader participation of women in leadership and governance. Mexico has one of the lowest rates of female representation on boards (and in senior management positions) in Latin America, with a smaller proportion of female directors than Colombia, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. Public companies in Mexico are beginning to appoint more women to boards due to initiatives such as the Stock Exchange Code of Best Practices recommendation and the 30% Club launched in Mexico in 2020, led by the CEOs and board chairs of some of the country’s largest companies. EGADE participates in this initiative to increase women’s representation on boards and in senior management roles to at least 30% by 2030. Progress is slow. The Deloitte Women in the Boardroom 2023 report shows that Mexico has just 12.3% of women on boards, lagging behind Chile (20.1%), Colombia (19.5%), and Brazil (15.9%), and only 5.3% of board chairs in Mexico are women. In Europe, countries like France, Norway, Italy, and Ireland, whilst not at gender parity in board representation, are above 40%.

Thus, we face a significant challenge in promoting greater gender diversity in corporate leadership and governance in Latin America, particularly in Mexico.

In terms of business education, EGADE is likely one of the most gender-diverse schools in Latin America, with over a third of all enrolled students being female; some programs achieve gender parity, while others have a higher number of women enrolled. (Our undergraduate business programs at Tecnológico de Monterrey have achieved gender parity; some programs again attract more female than male students). Nevertheless, we face the challenge of attracting more women to our MBA programs, where they constitute more than a third of the overall cohort. We address this through active employer engagement to enhance female participation in our MBA programs. Additionally, we implement initiatives such as webinars, recruitment events, and focus groups featuring alumni specifically targeted toward women. A Women in Finance scholarship program has proven effective in attracting women to our finance programs, and targeted scholarships for the MBA are also crucial. Building awareness campaigns and engaging in specific initiatives for women in leadership and governance with business organizations and women in business associations help promote and attract more women to our programs, particularly the MBA. Furthermore, we highlight the inspiring success stories of our female MBA graduates, many of whom lead prominent Mexican and multinational companies in Mexico and Latin America, many also serve as mentors to students coming through our programs or candidates who thinking about studying an MBA. 

Beyond the MBA, we are also highly focused on preparing women executives for leadership and governance. In partnership with McKinsey, we have developed specialized programs such as “Women Leading Organizations,” aimed at senior-level female executives, which focus on enhancing leadership skills, fostering a supportive community among women in business, and providing a platform for networking and mentorship. Our long-established “Board Directors’ Program” offers executive development, resources, and networking opportunities for leaders to effectively manage the critical, complex, and timely issues that corporate boards face today. Achieving gender parity or better in this program is a goal by 2030. While other countries in Latin America, like Chile and Colombia, have made notable strides in broadening the participation of women in business leadership and governance, in Mexico, we still have significant work ahead to enhance gender equity in business leadership roles. We are making bold strides at EGADE in partnership with industry and other key stakeholders to achieve this.

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