Decade at the helm: Insead’s longest-serving dean on why businesses must be a force for good

AFTER ten years at the helm of one of the world’s most famous graduate business schools, Ilian Mihov can be reasonably pleased with the report card he will soon leave behind at Insead.

The 57-year-old academic – born in Bulgaria and now a Singapore citizen – is the school’s longest-serving dean and will step down at the end of August after completing the maximum of two five-year terms.

Under his watch, Insead topped the Financial Times’ global Master of Business Administration (MBA) ranking thrice in the last 10 years.

Insead is also the world’s second-largest provider of executive education, and the third-largest business school in the world in terms of revenue (based on current exchange rates). And, of the 165 faculty members from 42 different countries who are currently on the payroll, half of them were recruited during Professor Mihov’s time as dean.

“When I became dean, I set out to make sure that the school is very stable, high-performing and innovative. By and large, I think we achieved this goal in my first six or seven years,” he tells The Business Times, in an interview at his office at Insead’s Asia campus in Singapore.

Prof Mihov, who joined Insead in 1996, is the school’s first dean in its 66-year history to be based in Asia instead of in France.

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Insead has locations in four regions around the world – Europe (Fontainebleau in France); Asia (Singapore); the Middle East (Abu Dhabi); and North America (San Francisco).

Unsurprisingly, the global nature of Insead’s operations means Prof Mihov is frequently on a plane somewhere, whether it’s to visit the other campuses, meet business partners or connect with the growing alumni network that is now more than 60,000 strong and counting.

He makes it a point to maintain strong links with Insead’s alumni wherever he goes, as part of an ongoing effort to create a “global learning community”. Many of Insead’s overseas alumni events are packed, and a recent gathering in London saw all 700 seats snapped up.

“As a result of this, our fundraising is doing very well,” said Prof Mihov. “Before I started (as dean), the average amount raised was about four million to five million euros (S$5.8 million to S$7.2 million) per year. Today, it is about 30 million euros and the biggest donations are from those who graduated in the 1970s to the 1990s.”

Another feather in his cap is the setting up of the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society in 2018, which aims to align Insead with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

“I’ve always believed in businesses as a force for good, and it’s important that business leaders think not just about their profits and shareholder value, but also the impact that they and their companies have on the environment and society,” said Prof Mihov, who recently stepped down from the board of the Singapore Economic Development Board after serving for six years.

Of course, not every part of his decade in charge at Insead was smooth sailing. The Covid-19 pandemic that swept through the world in 2020 crippled many businesses big and small, and Insead was no exception.

“The pandemic hit us very badly. Our total budget before the pandemic was 275 million euros. As part of our risk-mitigation process, we prepared for an annual loss of 10 million euros in revenue for two straight years.

That was an amount bigger than what happened during the global financial crisis (in 2008 and 2009), so we prepared in case of another financial crisis,” he shared.

Things turned out much worse than expected, though. Revenue in 2020 and 2021 came in 50 million euros and 60 million euros below pre-pandemic levels, respectively.

“That was tough, and we had to make a lot of difficult decisions. But we managed, and the final deficit was absolutely negligible,” Prof Mihov added.

If there was one big takeaway from the pandemic, said Prof Mihov, it’s the fact that there remains a deep desire for in-person learning and networking.

That is a chief reason why Insead is embarking on a new 10-year masterplan for its Europe campus, which opened more than half a century ago in 1967. Construction will take place over six phases, and work on the first new buildings is due to start in July this year.

“People are still very keen on in-person when it comes to education. During the pandemic, a lot of companies said they didn’t want the online model, and that’s why we lost the revenue. They want to be on campus,” explained Prof Mihov.

“The demand for management education from companies has gone through the roof, and we cannot satisfy the demand that we see today.”

As he counts down the days until he hands the deanship to his successor, Imperial College Business School dean Francisco Veloso, Prof Mihov is looking forward to a two-year sabbatical in the US. His girlfriend lives in Seattle and his two daughters (whom he had with his ex-wife) are now in New York and Boston.

He plans to return to Singapore after his break, and to go back to his first love – teaching – at Insead. Before he became dean, he taught macroeconomics and econometrics in the MBA, Executive MBA, PhD and various executive education programmes.

“My dissertation was on monetary policy, interest rates and inflation, which are all very topical these days. These are all extremely interesting to me and I want to do more research in these areas,” noted Prof Mihov.

“I want to return to Singapore, it’s where I have my apartment and my citizenship. I’m engaged with many organisations and government agencies, and I will see what else I can do once I’m back.”