There was a great atmosphere in the MBA Suite and online at the first ever MBA Alumni Summer School last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Hosted by MBA Director, Debbie Kemp and facilitated by various lecturers, staff and alumni everyone was treated to six superb ‘How to …’ workshops, with a networking drinks reception at the end of each day. Alumni from as far back as 1993 right up to 2022 joined us and it was great to see them back in class.
On the Monday, the programme kicked off with a workshop on how to innovate and manage organisational change in health and social care with Dr Simon Fletcher and Dr Catherine Marchand from the Centre for Health Services Studies. For this – and the following workshop on how to make decisions in crisis conditions with Professor Des Doran – we were also joined by MSc Healthcare Management alumni and students (pictured below).
Tuesday’s theme was technology, starting with MBA alumni Martin Paice and Stuart McDonald of Valcon showing us how to build a data infused organisation. After lunch, Thomas Hirschmann moved into a very topical area, how to embrace AI into your organisation, provoking a lot of discussion and debate. Valcon kindly sponsored the drinks reception afterwards.
On Wednesday, one of the current MBA cohort, James Havey in conjunction with the ASPIRE team, showed us how to embed principles of sustainability in an organisation. This was followed in the afternoon by the final workshop run by Professor Chidiebere Ogbonnaya, on how to lead and develop a high-performance team in times of organisational change and build personal resilience.
Afterwards MBA alumnus Kush Kanodia (pictured above), who attended every session in person, told us, ‘I was truly delighted to attend the inaugural Kent MBA Alumni Summer School. It’s great to see Kent MBA leading the way on lifelong learning and development and becoming a learning organisation. I thought it was a perfect mix of theory, research, case studies, discussions, and networking opportunities from different MBA cohorts. It was a really enjoyable learning environment, whilst making new contacts and friends, and I look forward to future Kent MBA Alumni Summer Schools.’
Recent graduate, Shubhra Kamat posted online, ‘My experience at Kent Business School’s Summer School on embedding AI in organisations was truly inspiring and transformative. I am immensely grateful to Kent Business School for organising such a remarkable program and for igniting my passion for AI integration.’
While alumnus Stylianos Fontrier, who joined us online each day from Greece, agreed saying, ‘I was fortunate to attend the MBA Summer School workshop sessions that touched upon actual and hot global topics for the society, economy, business and wellbeing of people on a global scale: health and social care, decisions under crisis, artificial intelligence, data analytics, sustainable growth, high team performance and resilience in times of organisational change. Kudos to the KBS MBA management team for this great up-skilling opportunity – looking forward to the next one.’
So, that’s at least two (if not three) people already confirmed for next year. Will you be there?