When you sign up to earn an Executive MBA, you know you’ll meet fascinating managers in your classes. You’ll also know that you will pick up important skills and tools to further your professional career. And you can expect to join a network of supportive professionals who will generously provide advice, mentorship, and guidance throughout your career. But what about the faculty?

Typically, most business schools put their most extraordinary professors into Executive MBA programs. After all, the managerial experience EMBA students bring to the classroom puts high expectations on the faculty to over deliver. The Executive MBA program at HEC Paris is no exception to this rule. The professors who teach its EMBA students in two different study formats and four flexible part-time intakes are among the most impressive in the business of learning.

‘I HAVE A PASSION FOR SIMPLIFYING COMPLEX CONCEPTS’  

Consider Jeremy Ghez, an HEC professor for more than a dozen years who currently teaches the core Business Environment course. His approach is highly pragmatic: “I’m in the business of building bridges that help participants tie the headlines of major publications with their business reality and problems they’re trying to solve,” he says. “I’m just a guy offering a toolkit. Once participants get that, they feel empowered to apply that toolkit to any global business environment problem they face.”

To every classroom, Ghez and his scholarly colleagues bring not only expertise but passion to teach others. Asked what makes her stand out in class, Associate Professor Ai Ting Goh replies: “Passion about my teaching. I like to teach with a bit of humor and fun in the classroom. I try to engage the students with lots of questions and bring them through a thinking process rather than just passing the knowledge.” Goh is the academic director of Transforming Business for Sustainability, a course that explores the global economy through the lens of sustainable development.

Innovation Professor Sihem Jouini believes two things allow her to stand out. “Firstly, my deep interest in both analytical thinking and theoretical frameworks, as well as the practical situations and challenges that companies face in reality,” she explains. “These two aspects fuel each other and enhance my teaching. Secondly, I have a passion for simplifying complex concepts and conveying them effectively to a live audience I believe I excel at helping students and practitioners grasp the bigger picture and articulate their ideas clearly when they pitch or write essays.”

ACADEMIC RESEARCH KEEPS THE FACULTY ON THE LEADING EDGE OF BUSINESS THINKING 

Their academic research informs their teaching and insures that they are on the leading-edge of thought leadership. Dimitrios Andritsos, who teaches Operation Management among other courses, is studying the operations of healthcare delivery and the pharmaceutical supply chain. Emeritus Professor Frédéric Iselin is focused on market research and value propositions.

And Laurence Lehmann-Ortega, who teaches Business Strategy, is researching business model innovation. “I understood 15 years ago that sustainable development issues can be a great trigger to reinvent a business model, and structured my research and teaching around this topic,” she says.

They have strong views on the future of business education. “If I had my way,” says Assistant Professor Georg Wernicke, the business school of the future would have much more of this… prioritize experiential learning, increase its focus on solving real-world problems, especially the grand challenges and stronger embrace technology to enhance the learning experience.”

SPOTLIGHT ON PROFESSORS WHO TEACH IN HEC PARIS’ EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAM

Adds Associate Professor Andrea Masini, “They should encourage cross-disciplinary research and enrich their curricula with courses and ideas from other disciplines. The recent attention to AI is just an example of how the boundaries between business and science are becoming blurred. They should also emphasize even more the importance of ethics. Business school graduates often end up in roles with a real impact. It is essential to prepare them for such responsibilities and remind them they must do well by doing good. We should also work harder on equal opportunities and facilitate access to education for students from underprivileged backgrounds.”

In this spotlight on the faculty who teach EMBA students in the HEC Paris program, you’ll find detailed profiles of eight outstanding professors who share their research interests, teaching insights, and personal details, including their motivations for teaching the elements of business to others. While an incredibly diverse group, just as diverse as the EMBA classes at HEC Paris that draw students from 50 nationalities, what they have in common is their deep commitment to learning and sharing what they know with their HEC Paris students.

They teach in the 18-month-long program in four locations Paris, Jouy-en-Josas (17 kilometers outside of Paris), Doha, Qatar, or Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There’s the EMBA Weeklong format, with intakes every January and September. It meets once a week every two months over eight modules in Jouy-en-Josas. There’s the more traditional weekend format that meets every other Friday and Saturday at HEC’s main campus and in Paris with a single intake every March. And finally, there’s the school’s Middle East weeklong format with a February intake that meets in Doha, Qatar or Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Meet The Professors Who Teach In HEC Paris’ Executive MBA Program

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